


Another Way Home

by andersam5



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 22:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9924236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andersam5/pseuds/andersam5
Summary: When a young girl is found murdered in cold blood, Nick Valentine is determined to track down the killer. His investigation leads him straight into the hold of a gun-running mob, run by the mysterious Riley Hayes. Has Nick bit off more then he can chew? And will he and Riley uncover the real threat to Diamond City before its too late?---------An alternate timeline where Sole Survivor Riley woke up from the vault early, without the Institute's influence. Woke up so early, in fact, that this is before Nick became Diamond City's resident detective.Co-written with Tumblr user WaffleGuppies





	1. The Setup

Penny Hoyt was dead to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that.

  
She’d been found dead after a gunshot rang out in the middle of the night, found with an unloaded gun in her hand. Despite Diamond City’s blinding stadium lights, no-one had seen who did it. At least, nobody who wanted justice.  
Justice was the furthest thing from Riley Hayes’ mind. She carefully polished a gun barrel, her soot-covered boots propped up on a desk which, in a past life, had belonged to some US military busybody.

The bunker was carved into the rock, innocuous. The front entrance was well-hidden, not trying too hard to look like it belonged there. It had taken a while for Riley to clear the skeletons out of it, but if you didn't mind the smell, it was as good a base as any. Gun-building took place in what had once been the mess hall, overseen by careful men in clothes who looked just as much like they’d had a former life. Riley felt no remorse for the retrofitting. Hell, in its own way it was a pretty poetic metaphor for her life over the past few years. But poetry didn't keep men in line.

A knock on the door caught her attention.

“What?” she asked, and a man in a dirty wool cap entered.

“There was an interruption at the weapons exchange,” he explained. “Some DC kid tried to hone in. I took care of her.”  
Riley sighed, reattaching the barrel to her pistol, loading it as she stood from her desk. “I recall telling you to be careful, _Mack.”_  His name was punctuated by the sound of the gun cocking. The man flinched a hair at the sound, swallowing nervously as she rested her elbow on his right shoulder and leaned in. “Don’t you?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“And you know what happens when my men disappoint me.”

Her other arm came around, and a harsh gunshot rang out. A neat new hole appeared in the scuffed wood floor, mere inches from Mack’s foot.

“Funny,” Riley said, sarcastically, in his ear. She didn’t even look at where her shot had landed. “Seems for the first time in my life, I missed. You cause any more collateral damage, and I’ll make sure I’m right on target next time. Understand?”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

“Off you go.”

  
Mack wasted no time in getting out of her office as quick as he could.

 

* * *

 

Penny had been a good kid. She’d deserved a lot of things, things the Commonwealth might have been slow to give her- success, happiness, security, a family of her own someday. One thing she hadn’t deserved was a bullet in the skull. She hadn’t deserved to die alone on a cracked concrete floor under the North Stands, and she hadn’t deserved to end up lying on a slab in Diamond City’s shabby security barracks, cold and still with a hole in her temple the size of a bottlecap. Nick Valentine was certain about that.

 The Hoyts had been pretty new in town. They’d been gouging out a living selling junk from a stall in the marketplace, whenever they could find enough to sell. Penny’s father had skipped out years ago, skipped from some tiny settlement. Miranda Hoyt, five shots deep in Vadim’s signature rotgut, couldn’t pronounce too good. It had been Miranda and Penny against the world. Now it was just Miranda, dead drunk, head down on a table in the Dugout with her hair straggling around her face like a dirty halo.

Nick had heard plenty, mopping the floor in the Dugout that night. There was plenty of curiosity about Penny’s death, but not a lot of focused inquiry. Most people took the empty gun and added the corpse and came up with the total of a motiveless suicide. This sat badly with Nick, almost as badly the lack of powder burns around the wound, and that was only the start of it. He’d seen the body- it was amazing where you could find floors to mop, if you had to- and to shoot herself at that angle Penny would have needed either superhuman flexibility, or three hands.

So here he stood, at the head of a dry rocky gulch two days’ hard travel from the Great Green Jewel, on the trail of a stranger who’d left town in a hurry the night Penny died. It wasn’t a great lead, but it was the only one he had.

As the daylight faded, Nick saw what he’d been waiting for in the dark rocks below. He was moving as soon as he spotted the movement, flicking the cigarette he’d lit to pass the time away into the shadows and picking carefully down through thin dry scrub, treading as lightly as he could.

That door had been weighted by someone who’d known what they were doing. It was nearly soundless, but Nick could still hear the man’s footsteps in the dirt. He sidled behind a rough screen of foliage, keeping it between him and his mark.

Over the last few hours, he’d seen six men come out of the bunker, singly and together, and six men go back inside. None of them had been the right man. This time, Nick hoped he’d be luckier.

 

* * *

 

Mack wiped his sweaty brow, wondering if this was all worth it. God, that Hayes was a tough girl, but the potential caps in this deal were too good to pass up. At least he was back at HQ with the supplies she'd asked him to get.

Nick straightened in the dark. There it was, finally, that grimy light-grey cap Becky Fallon had described to a T. Nick waited for the man to draw level and pass him in the shadows, leaving him between Grey Cap and the door. Three long steps and a quick smooth draw of the old pipe revolver from his waistband and the muzzle was cocked against the angle of the man’s chin.

“Brady MacIntyre,” he said, clear and low. “That’s the name, right? No need to talk. A nod’ll do just fine.”

“How did you know my na-“ A deeper press of the gun shut Mack up quick, with his hand hovering uselessly over his own gun at his waist. He looked down at the synth, and Nick saw the familiar attentive light that came into people’s eyes when they recognized what he was.

“Oh God, you’re one of them synths, aren’t ya-”

“That’s right,” Nick growled. “And you don’t listen too good, do you, Brady? You’re in a bad position to be pissing me off, so keep it down and we’ll get along just fine. What is this place? What’re you people doing down there?”

Mack may have been a goon, but like any man in the Commonwealth he wasn’t keen on being switched with a bucket of bolts. As far as he knew he was about to be hauled off and replaced, and the cold muzzle of the gun gave him ample motivation to talk. “Gun running, working for Hayes. We’re just beginning to get our break around here. Please-” Mack’s voice cracked, nerves setting in. “Don’t drag me away- or whatever it is you Institute people do-"

“Hayes...” Nick had heard that name before. A lot of stories, a lot of whispers... none of them good. It wasn’t the first time someone had taken him for an Institute boogeyman, not by a long shot, and he smiled grimly into the dark at the fear in MacIntyre’s voice. There was nothing particularly heroic in spooking a frightened man, but then, Nick had never figured himself for a hero. “So you boys are dealing arms down here. Who’s your pal in Diamond City? Yeah, that’s right,” he added, as the man started under his grip. “I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Brady. Maybe I am Institute. Maybe I’m freelance. Doesn’t make much odds to you either way, right now...”

Mack swallowed thickly. Maybe if he sang, the synth would let him go free. “Some scavver named Reed, says he wants to rip Diamond City a new one. He promised us a cut if we supply him.”

Nick was about to speak when the door opened and another man came out. He hardly had time to turn, spinning his captive with him like a human shield. He hoped to goodness that this newcomer cared enough about MacIntyre to refrain from shooting Nick clean through him- but then again, this was the Wastes, where camaraderie was in precious short supply.

“Hey!” the man said, drawing his gun. “The fuck are you doing here-”

“Dan! Help me out here-”

“Shut it, Mack!” He aimed for Nick. “Damn… knew it was a matter of time before those Institute goons came for us, better wrap this up before it starts-”

“What the hell?” yelped Mack. “Get me away from it first!”

“What’s going on ou- Jesus!” Here came another, stumbling out of the entrance with an ugly old shotgun half-shucked and a startled expression. There was movement behind him, in the open doorway, voices. This was turning into a regular three-ring circus, and Nick had no interest in sticking around for the clowns. He hadn’t proved Mack’s guilt, but he’d learned enough about the threat to DC to want to get back as soon as he could.

Easier said than done.

“Alright, now, everyone just calm down,” he suggested, keeping his revolver nice and steady against the man’s temple, trying to present as little of a target as possible.

The voices grew louder as more of them came running, some wanting to shoot at once, others wanting to get Mack clear first. Nick was running out of time and options, when a female voice cut through the chatter.

"The hell are you guys blocking the door for?"

They parted like a sea, and from behind the door a woman stepped out. She was cool and poised even in a dirty plaid shirt and boots, her lips alight with prewar lipstick- a rare commodity nowadays. She had fiery red hair to match her presence. She turned and looked right at Nick, and her blue eyes met his.

The ice in her smile sent a shiver right up the metal plates of his spine. Nick had known from the start that this whole situation could land him in trouble way over his head- what was he, after all, but a glorified tin handyman playing cop? As she looked him up and down, however, he realized that he’d just gone way past trouble.

 

The dame had eyes that could stop a heart. The Colt ‘45 in her hand had almost certainly stopped dozens.

 

“So,” she said. Her pose relaxed a fraction, as she rested her free hand on her hip. “What are you supposed to be?” She sounded accusing, but amused, as if she’d already brushed him off as a threat- at least as it appeared on the outside.

Nick knew he’d better talk straight, and fast. He put up his hand in a yielding gesture, holding his revolver loosely, and in the same movement gave Mack a hard shove in the back of the legs with his foot, sending the man staggering away from him. That left him vulnerable, but the men were looking to her and Nick was pretty sure she wouldn’t shoot him until he’d finished his piece.

“I’m a synth,” he said, raising his voice to be heard across the space between them, “and no, I’m not Institute. And I’m not here to start a fight. You’ll excuse me for being picky, but I talk a lot better when people aren’t pointing large-caliber firearms at my head.” 

Nick noticed something change in her the moment he started speaking. He had no way of knowing it, but that drawl was something she hadn’t heard in a long time. She took a few steps towards him, those icy eyes looking him up and down. He was sure his goose was cooked- but then she spoke again.

“Lower your weapons, boys,” she ordered. “You.” She pointed to the synth, then motioned him towards her with her finger. “Come with me, if you please."

Nick clicked the safety back on his revolver and stashed it back in his waistband as he walked through the crowd of men and followed their leader through the bunker’s heavy door. From the filthy look Mack gave him as he passed, the man wasn’t going to forget their meeting any time soon.

The inside was just as heavy and cold, the only heat coming from the warm bodies inside and the generators that kept the machinery going. It was dingy, functional- classic prewar military design. Riley only looked back at the synth once or twice as he followed her through hallways and up stairs, making sure he was staying behind her. He didn't look like much, more like a chew-toy in a clothes then a man. But that accent, that sound she hadn't heard in years… it kept her curious, eager to know something.

Riley knew how to get the things she wanted.

Everything Nick saw confirmed Mack’s story. This was a heck of a set-up, with a lot of room for expansion. The little he saw as she led him deeper would have clued him in that these people knew what they were doing, even if the rumours he’d heard of this particular gang hadn’t told him that much already. Wasn’t that just his luck- out for answers for a simple killing, he’d stumbled across a professional operation.

Ultimately Riley led him to a door that opened into a rather decent-looking office. "Mind the bullet-holes in the floor," she cautioned, as she held the door open to him.

“Much obliged,” he said, drily, stepping inside. Every instinct he had warned him against turning his back on this woman, but he figured she hadn’t led him all this way to plug him in the head. She could have done that with a better audience outside. Still, he could feel her eyes on his back as she shut the door.

“So...” She leaned against her desk. “That accent. You’re not from around here."

“Haven’t had a lot of dealings with synths, have you?” Nick shot her a grim smile. “Usually the reputation proceeds us. We sound like whatever those Institute eggheads wanted us to. The accent’s from Chicago, but the rest of me was made right here in the Commonwealth, as far as I know.”

He shrugged. “Speaking of a reputation, I’m going to guess you’re Hayes. It’s a nice setup you’ve got down here.”

“Thank you.” She folded her arms. “So, what brings you here? You looking for work? Or you here for something else? Don’t be shy- trust me, I’ve had men come to me through worse incidents."

“That’s real reassuring,” said Nick. He thought fast. Maybe his show outside had impressed her, or maybe she was just drawing him along. Either way, he didn’t have a lot of choice- there were a lot of guns between him and the exit and only four bullets in his own. For now, it was better to play along- at least until he figured out a way of getting out of this in one piece.

“Work’s pretty scarce with a mug like mine. Heard maybe you’re smart enough not to pass up a good hand just ‘cause it ain’t flesh and blood.”

“As long as said hand doesn’t get caught in anything.” She moved around her desk, taking her eyes off him. Nick had a moment to look about the office. Something about it felt off. Among the starkness of the military furniture, the shelves were lined with all sorts of objects, mostly domestic pre-war objects, some in impeccable condition. It wasn’t exactly the type of collection a ruthless wastelander would keep.

“Hate paperwork,” she muttered. “But the benefits outweigh the cons."

 _Someone’s got a taste for the past,_ thought Nick. He was suddenly very glad he hadn’t mentioned his own pre-war connections. He never made a habit out of it, at least not on first meetings- finding it complicated matters four times out of five and made people edgy, even more uncertain how to take him than they’d naturally be about a thing that talked like a man and looked like a collection of spare parts.

He wondered if she knew what half the things were. There was a nice Remington set up on a shelf that a few people back in DC would have given their right arm for, but it didn’t look too used.

“I’m not too keen on it myself,” he said. “Interesting collection. You got a thing for antiques?”

“Suppose I do,” she said, casual but with a hint of edge, as if she was daring him to make fun of it. She straightened, shutting a drawer and handing him a clipboard. The heads of the pages had been neatly typed. “Hate paperwork, huh? Well, at least that means you know how to write.” She pointed with a pen. “Name, place where you come from, on the line please.”

Nick spent the time it took him to write his name considering the next question. His name was safe enough- who outside of DC would have heard of it?- but owning up that he came straight from the city was a bad idea. You didn’t get inside DC unless you were clean… or highly illegal. He didn’t figure the first option would win him many points around here, and the second would tie him up in a bunch of further stories. As many a career criminal had learned in the old Nick’s time, alibis were tricky things. It was better to keep them as simple as possible.

 _Dulvey._ The name fell out of the end of his pen almost too easily. A nice little name, for a nice little place, although it had been close on a century since he’d called it home. Tiny, miles from this bunker, it was safe enough.

“Nick Valentine,” she read aloud when he handed it back. It was a small change, but Nick could see the minuscule look of vague recognition in her eyes. She felt like she’d heard that name before, or maybe it was in a dream. It seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t place her finger on it. The sound of the name was so lost to time, lost to a newspaper on a kitchen table that burned to cinders the day the bombs fell.

“Right, anyways.” She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Anything you’re proficient at, Mr. Valentine?"

“I can handle a gun. I’ve got a steady hand, pretty good with precise work… oh, and I can hack most pre-war machines. Mind, I’ve come across a few I couldn’t get into, but by and large, I guess you could say I speak their language.”

“Well then.” She smiled, a gesture that would have been nice to see if it hadn’t had ice behind it. “You came just in time. My own personal terminal is on the fritz right now."

“Ain’t that convenient,” said Nick. He hadn’t liked the flicker in her eyes as she’d read his name. Maybe it had been a bad idea not to use an alias. Then again, she hadn’t drawn and nailed him on the spot, and while her request was clearly a test, just like the farce of the ‘recruitment form’ had been a test, it seemed a fairly reasonable one.

He moved to the terminal on her desk, a standard all-in-one UOS model that looked like it had been thrown down a couple of flights of stairs. “You mind?”

“Go for it. The directory is a bit corrupted, can you get it to cooperate?"

“Sure thing.” Nick leaned over the old machine and started to type. The thing was locked, but not too tight- it took him a minute to get around it and into the database.

Lots of files, neatly organised. Whoever Hayes really was, she had a tidy mind. Under her cold gaze, Nick knew better than to spend any time reading, as bad as the information at his fingertips itched at him. He was walking a tightrope, and he knew it.

“These older models don’t handle subdirectories too well,” he said, as he worked. “You’ve got five or six levels in some of these folders, that’s going to triple your runtime and end up fragging up the whole system. Stick to two or three and get some better security while you’re at it, a schoolkid could bypass this thing.”

“You know, you’re the first man who’s ever touched my computer and lived,” she chuckled, darkly. As he stood, she reached up to his face, tipping his chin up and looking him over as if he was a piece she was inspecting for quality. Although she didn’t know it, Nick had experienced this kind of dehumanizing scrutiny many times before, but not often under a gaze so intense, steely and studying.

“Now, be a good bot and head down to the barracks. I’m sure Chloe will have a few odd jobs for you.” Riley guided him to the door, closing it behind him.

When he’d gone she turned, biting her lip. Something here didn’t feel right. Something about him. But, of course, now something new was on her mind. She headed over to her newly unlocked computer and navigated to a file. As she pressed Enter, a panel slid open in the wall behind her. She lingered, relieved to have access to her sanctuary again. Soft pre war music lingered up the stairs into the dark hideaway, a sound that no one would have heard unless they were listening close by. She stepped inside, and there was the audible sound of the panel closing, leaving the blinking cursor of the computer the only light in the room.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take Nick too long to get a handle on the way the place worked. There were fifteen people in Hayes’ gang, men and women, all tough customers of the same type Nick had seen over and over again out in the wastes. They liked caps and booze and fighting and didn’t particularly care how they came by any of it. The only real difference between this outfit and a bunker full of raiders was a mask of civilization, and it wasn’t too hard to see where that came from, now he’d met the boss.

Most of the others got over his appearance and the sudden manner of his arrival pretty quickly, once they knew Hayes had given him her approval… for now, anyway. There was nothing new to Nick about the way they treated him, half curiosity and half amusement, watching him perform normal everyday actions as if he was a trained animal they’d never seen before. As he worked on the maintenance tasks the engineer, Chloe, had given him, he took the usual jokes and comments with no nonsense and gave back as good as he got.

Mack kept his distance, but Nick wasn’t too happy about the way he skulked around, or the little grin he caught on the man’s face a couple of times when he looked his way. On the second morning, he decided enough was enough, and cornered Mack in the mess hall in a rare moment when the others weren’t around.

“Do we still have a problem, MacIntyre?”

“Maybe we do, Valentine.” He spat his name shortly. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you walking around the place like you own the rig, getting everyone’s attention, probably hoping you’ll just blend in after a while.” He sneered, arms folded. “You got close to the boss real fast, Valentine, something I had to work for. You think you can lay a finger on her, you got another thing coming, _synth.”_

He leaned in. “If that’s what you really are. I asked the boys and they all agreed none of ‘em had ever seen a ‘synth’ that looks like you before... even Angus, and he swears he was almost taken by them once.”

Angus, as Nick recalled, also wholeheartedly believed the sky had turned blue after the bomb, and had previously been lilac. But Mack seemed to be a man who would overlook such things if another thing the man said worked in his favor. He looked vindictive, proud of his ‘detective’ skills. “You wanna really know why I think she keeps you around? You’re a relic. Some sort of rare Protecteron she wants to add to that little collection she’s got.”

“So you’re still sore I got the jump on you,” said Nick. He leaned in, filling his voice with gravel, his yellow eyes glinting in the dim-lit hall. He could do a fine job of being scary when he needed to, although to tell the truth he wished it didn’t come half so easily. He knew how he looked, eerie, threatening, the malevolent thing Mack thought he was. “Maybe you think I couldn’t do it again. You’re welcome to test that theory, but personally, I’m just looking for an easy life.”

He grinned. “Push your luck and we might just find out which one of us is the real relic here. I’d think about that real hard, Mack. Remember, unlike you, I don’t need to sleep. And make no mistake,” he added. “I un-like you a _lot.”_

Mack arched back away from him, the right side of his face twitching away even further. He did look rather intimidated, for a moment.

“J-just don’t think you can take this DC arms deal from me,” he hissed, looking like he suddenly remembered he needed to be somewhere else. “Reed’s paying big, and I’m saving what he told me he plans to do as a surprise for her. She’s gonna love it. So stay away from her, Valentine. This deal is _mine.”_

He shoved him away, sulking out, but Nick could hear him running once he was out of his sight.

“The restrooms are the other way,” Nick called after him.

The boys in the mess laughed, stopping when Chloe marched in. “Fun and games are over, boys, hit the bunks. Shelby, if I catch you out again tonight I’m letting Hayes deal with you.”

She looked to Nick. “Valentine. Got a generator upstairs for you to fix, bit of a doozy, room next to the boss’s office. Chop chop.”

 

* * *

 Nick had a lot on his mind as he fought with the old generator, which had been past its prime about fifty years ago- as far as that went, he could relate. Nobody seemed to be watching him too hard, and he supposed that he did look like an unlikely candidate for a Diamond City snoop, but if he just skipped out now, he’d miss his chance to find out anything new about whatever this Reed character might be up to. If he learned more about the nature of the deal Hayes’ boys had struck in DC, he might be able to suss the rest out. There was no other way- he had to stick around.

Finally, the generator sputtered back to life, leaving Nick sitting back amongst his scattered tools and wiping ancient grease from his skeletal fingers on an old rag. Over the jerky thump of the pistons he thought he heard another sound, low and strange enough to catch his attention. It sounded like music.

He stood, tossing the rag aside, and followed the sound.

Riley busied about her sanctuary, fingers looking along the books on a shelf. The room was a little rectangle, looking so much different now than the bare bomb-shelter it had been when she discovered it. A good portion of her collection had come from the room, which had been built for whoever had once occupied her office, but for some reason it had never been used. Perhaps the poor sod couldn't get to it in time.

Sometimes she considered him lucky, whoever he’d been.

She gritted her teeth and slowed as a scar on her abdomen acted up, forcing her to remember one of her many early mistakes in the wasteland, back when she'd been naive and soft. Shaking her head to focus she went back to her task, looking for her favourite novel.

The music was coming from Hayes’ office. Nick stopped before the heavy door. Pushing in without knocking was a pretty good way of getting shot, knowing the reputation Hayes held in her own gang… but that tune gave him pause.

_A real blast from the past._

He gave the thick frosted glass panel at the top of the door a cautious once-over. From this side, the blurry shape of the desk looked empty. There was nobody in the chair, nobody pacing the floor. Nick, reflecting not for the first time that this damned curiosity was going to get him killed one of these days, turned the handle and edged the door open as quietly as he could.

Her office was empty, dark. The only light in the room came from the computer monitor and from the open shaft where the music was drifting from. It seemed like a hidden hallway, sloping down so Nick couldn’t see what was on the other end.

But then again, that also meant if someone was on the other side they couldn't see him.

Nick stepped up to the desk, tapping a couple of fingers on the keyboard. This could be his only chance to take a look in her private files, but it couldn’t hurt to get her whereabouts straight, first. At least it would save him from being snuck up on if it turned out she did have a way to see up here.

He hugged the wall as he descended, hoping there was a recessed doorframe or at least a corner he could take advantage of, before she had a chance to see him coming.

His luck held out. The doorframe provided just enough cover for him to stick to the shadows as he got closer.

What he found was Riley, sitting in a patched armchair, her eyes fixed on a book- one of the bestsellers from just before the bombs fell. She let out a sigh, her feet propped up on a crate as she turned the page. A record player crooned softly in the background. The room was a stark contrast to the rest of the cold, hard bunker. It still had steel walls, but the soft lamplight changed its character completely, just as Hayes’ unusually relaxed position made her look like a completely different person.

Of course, the illusion was shattered by the impressive collection of firepower sitting on the shelf just under her small collection of books.

Nick caught himself holding his breath, an empty effort if there ever was one. So this was the dame’s secret, the extension of all those pre-war knick-knacks upstairs. If this was nostalgia, some kind of longing for a past she never saw first-hand, it was a heck of a case.

The striking thing was how peaceful she looked. He’d had a couple of days to watch her operate and around her men she was a hard, single-minded firebrand, focused on what she wanted first and last. Not his favourite type of person, to put it mildly, however much he respected her guts and her skill, keeping these hounds in line. Right now, though, she seemed calm, at ease, another woman. The room could have been from another time, a pre-war den that happened to have taken a hell of a beating… but she fitted right in.

The song ended. The needle played static for a few seconds before it moved off and back into its holder. The silence stretched out for a moment before she put her book down and stood, turning her back to him as she slid another record out of its sleeve.

Riley had so much on her mind right now. At least the new synth, as oddly as his presence sat in her mind, had taken the fear of equipment breaking down out of her thoughts. Picking up a printout from her terminal, she looked over the long list of things Reed had ordered. Certainly seemed like a lot for one man, but she supposed that was good in the long run. The more caps, the more men; the more men, all the more security. She wasn’t about to let this world catch her off-guard again, she thought to herself, as she rested the needle on the inner ring of the record.

 

_“I don’t want to set the world on fire...”_

 

Nick shook himself out of it. The important thing was that she was occupied, not likely to budge anytime soon. He could get the answers he wanted out of her terminal, or at least some of them, and work himself a step further to getting the hell out of this joint. He took a step back, ready to retrace his steps.

 

_“I just want to start… a flame in your heart…”_

 

Just as he turned, the fingers of his left hand brushed one of the old heating pipes, exposed against the wall. If it had been his other hand, his plastic skin would have muffled the sound, but the metal joints of his fingers struck a bright note out of the copper, a discord under the pleasant sound of the song.

Riley’s head snapped up at the sound, nearly dropping her list as she spun on her heel, drawing her gun in a heartbeat. “Who’s there?” she demanded.

Nick might have had time to draw, as fast as she was. He could have tried, but he kept his hands up, moving slow and careful. Half in the shadows, he could have been anybody, but as he moved into the light the glow of his eyes gave it away.

“I heard the music,” he said. “I know curiosity killed the cat, but the worst it ever did to the synth was land it on the wrong side of a gun.”

“Nick.” She narrowed her eyes, keeping her gun aimed. “I know Chloe lets you into some of the more restricted areas, but that doesn’t give you free license to wander around.”

“Understood, boss. What can I say, it won’t happen again.” He kept his hands just where they were. With the stories the others told and those deadly eyes of hers fixed right on him, he was absolutely sure she’d shot men over less. “I’m just hoping that’s because you trust my discretion, and not because I’m about to catch a bullet in the skull.”

Her gun lowered a fraction. “You’re an odd bird, Valentine.”

 

_”And that one is you… no other will do…”_

 

“Those... Institute people, they ever tell you how this place used to be?”

“If they told me anything, it kinda got lost in the shuffle when they wiped my brain and tossed me out on my ass,” said Nick. “You’re talking about before the war? Before the bombs?”

“Yes, smartass.” She rolled her eyes, lowering her gun, although she noted what he’d said about the Institute. “Not sure if there’s many other states the world’s been in.”

“The way you’ve got this place set up down here, you’d think the war never happened.” Slowly, Nick put his hands down.

 

_“And with your admission… that you feel the same...”_

 

“Almost, anyway.”

“If only,” she sighed to herself. She looked up at him, summoning her steely gaze again. “So I got a hobby, so sue me."

“You know, it might sound rosy, but you’d probably have found it a deal harder to do business back then,” Nick observed, mildly. “Not much place for a gun-runner in pre-war society, at least, not the swankier parts of it. You might have heard, they had these guys called _cops._ They weren’t working for any kind of private army, no mercs, no security. They were just there to protect ordinary, law-abiding citizens. That was the idea, anyway. Of course, back then, there would have been a lot more law-abiding citizens around to protect.”

Hayes bit her tongue, but in an instant Nick could recognize the look on her face was one not of disinterest, but of irritated patronization.

This thing was telling _her_ what a cop had been? Her father had been a damn cop! “Sounds like a wild time,” she replied, flatly. “Now, are you going to head back upstairs by yourself, or will I have to send you up in a body-bag?”

“You’re the boss,” he said, backing up. There was something _off_ about this. If she was so interested in the past, how come she didn’t want to talk about it? Maybe she figured he was lying, but if her usual sources were dim-bulbs like Angus, probably she’d learned to take everything people said about before the bombs with a grain of salt.

Still, his instincts nagged at him. Plus, his pride- well, Nick Valentine’s pride- prickled at the sneer in her voice. The old Nick wouldn’t have cared to have his experience and his entire profession dismissed by a gun-running crook like her, and the synthetic Nick didn’t like it much either.

 “I’ll go tell Chloe the generator’s fixed.”

“You’d better. I catch you down here again I’ll shoot, got it, Valentine?”

 

_“I don’t want to set the world on- world on- world on-”_

 

Riley picked up the needle from the spinning record, turning her back only when she’d heard him leave completely. Seemed like every time she talked with this guy she just got more questions. He seemed to know a lot about life before the war, almost like he had lived it… but no, that was impossible. He’d said it himself- assembled by the Institute- and although he looked ragged, it certainly didn’t look like the wear of over two hundred years.

Still, something about what he’d said, however hostile her initial reaction had been, warmed her a fraction- a warmth she quickly squashed, like a radroach under her boot. No sense in getting close. She’d get hurt again, she was sure.

 


	2. Another Errand, Another Test

The next few days were uneasy, tense, and hard. Nick felt as if he was getting a crash-course refresher in being Nick Valentine, parts of who he was which had been mostly dormant and rusty in mostly-safe, mostly-lawful DC coming to the surface and reminding him of things he’d tried hard to forget. That however hard he worked at being just harmless, handy old Nick, there were pieces of his mind that just wouldn’t play ball. The old Nick had been good at what he did- damn good- and in this nest of hornets the old Nick’s instincts kept him painfully aware of what a knifeblade he was walking, every day.

Since that day in her office, he was almost always aware of Hayes’ eyes on him. His suspicion that she was only waiting for a chance to test him further turned out to be right on the money. One stormy morning, the word went round that the boss wanted everyone down in the assembly room, post-haste.

Most of the men were already there when Nick joined them, all sitting at the same line of benches and tables, most of them chattering amongst each other. Nick felt the absence of a certain pair of eyes on him. The few other times there’d been any kind of big pow-wow in this room, he’d always felt Mack’s stare, hot and jealous. But this time he wasn’t there. Just Chloe, talking to Dan about a near-miss the other day.

A few of them fell silent as Riley walked into the room and stood at the head of the table. A shouted “HEY, listen up!” from her shut the rest of them up.

“First of all, I want to congratulate you scabs on getting the order complete, good work there.” Angus applauded wildly, his claps slowing and stopping as everyone else stared him down. “Mack’s in DC now, making sure he’s got our caps, and then we’ll send the caravan out. Booze is on me tonight, boys.” Now THAT got all of them cheering.

“Alright, ALRIGHT!” She shut them up again. “I got an errand to run, since Mack’s not here. You boys just relax today, but remember, Chloe will have her eye on you. Valentine-” She looked right at him, as did everyone else. “You’re with me today.”

The boys _oohed_ and laughed like a bunch of schoolboys. Angus elbowed him playfully. Nick made sure to take the ribbing in good part, smiling and tipping his hat down as Riley strode from the room. He fell in behind her as she walked on up the bunker’s main stairs.

“Anything I need to know?” he said, running through a quick check on his revolver, keeping his eyes down. A reliable gun to hand at all times- now, there was something he hadn’t needed in a while.

She brought him to her office, bidding him to stay in the doorway as she geared up, grabbing an extra gun, ammo, and some stims. “Got a new offer to scout out,” she explained as she loaded the second gun, a laser pistol. “Made contact with a guy by the name of Anderson, out to the west. Normally, Mack goes with me on these things, but since he’s away-” She fastened in a fusion cell with a _click._ “-I thought perhaps now would be a good time to see if a wrench isn’t the only thing you’re handy with.”

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing on her mind. The past few days had been rough for her too, as she’d turned his name and his voice over and over in her head, trying to figure out what his real deal was. She’d been vigilant too, and so far the guy hadn’t dared to try and get back into her sanctuary. Maybe he really was just some regular bucket of bolts looking for work. Mack had been showing a few delusions of grandeur lately, and it would be nice to at least have someone else in the outfit she could consult.

Nick nodded, accepting an extra half-dozen bullets for his own gun and stowing them in his pocket. He always travelled light, and he’d brought nothing to the bunker but the revolver and the clothes he was standing up in, pants and a shirt which had already seen pretty hard service before he got his hands on them in Becky’s basement. Armour, the kind humans used, wasn’t much more than additional weight for him, and he never bothered with it. Just about the only thing you could have called a luxury item, aside from the good shoes worn so thin in several places on the soles that he could feel the shape of the stairs beneath his metal heels, was the hat.

She didn’t wear much protection, either. He figured, with an eye as good as hers was supposed to be, she didn’t need it.

“Alright.” She grabbed a rubber band, pulling it on her wrist before she headed out the door, locking it behind her. “Lets go, Valentine.”

They headed upstairs and out into the light rain, an occasional rumble reminding them of the storm clouds overhead. She stopped at the top of the gulch, reaching into her satchel for a bulky object. When she tipped it out into her hands, most of the bag went limp, only a few miscellaneous supplies left behind.

Riley strapped the bulky object to her wrist. The switch on the back moved with a satisfying _click_ and the black screen sputtered to greenish life, a little cartoon character giving her a thumbs up before the display flickered to a map.

“You ever seen one of these, Valentine?” she asked, showing him the Pip-Boy on her wrist with an amused smile.

“Once or twice,” he said. Pip-Boys were a curiosity for him. He would have liked the chance to fool around with one, just to see what it was like to have your own personal terminal right on your arm. “If it hadn’t been for the bombs, maybe everyone really would’ve ended up walking around with one, like all those old Vault-Tec ads said. That sure would have been something.”

He tipped his head back, watching the scudding clouds. “They’re a pretty rare find. How’d you wind up with one?”

 _Vault-Tec ads?_ Riley hadn’t seen one of those in years. She tried to think of any other places they might have survived, other than Commonwealth billboards, her mind running off before she could stop it. After a moment, she realized Nick was looking at her expectantly. “Got it off a dead dweller,” she lied, looking away. “I tend to only use it away from the boys, the thing holds too-” _Many memories,_ she stopped herself from saying. “T-too much value. You just know Chloe would be itching to get her greasy hands on it.”

She zoomed out of the map, getting a read on where they were headed. “This way.” She pointed a little more northwest, before heading in that direction.

A lie. He saw it, the hesitation, the funny little flick of her eyes as she changed tack. What kind of lie? Had she bumped off some poor vault-dweller to get her hands on the thing? It was the obvious thought, but although he turned the idea around in his mind, he couldn’t make it fit. If she had, why would she bother to pretend she hadn’t, to him of all people?

They walked in silence through the rocky wastes, until the land flattened and the ruins of scattered fences and barns started to jut up above the scrubby brush. The day was darkening, the rain getting harder.

“What kind of deal are we getting into?” he asked, more to break the monotony than anything else. “Hard to believe someone’s running firearms all the way out here.”

"We don't deal with gangs in our immediate area. Would be a bit stupid to supply them and then have them turn right around on us on our doorstep," Hayes explained. "The DC hit was pretty big, but apparently Mack had to kill a girl to cover his tracks. Could always use another ally, especially if those DC security goons ever scrounge up enough brain cells to connect the dots." She looked towards a red barn in the distance. "Never dealt with this troupe before, call themselves the Redeemers. As if anyone could believe this world has a God any more. They're pretty new, so we don't have much info on them."

 _Her name was Penny,_ Nick thought. Anger fired smoky threads through his gut. _Her name was Penny, she was sixteen, and maybe it’s better she died like she did, protecting her home, than live to turn into a piece of work like you._

“I guess it depends on what they think they’re redeeming.” He kept his voice as even as he could. “If they’re looking to save us from our sins, they’re a couple of centuries behind their time.”

That got a laugh out of her, none the wiser to the anger in him. Truthfully, it had taken her a lot of control to just put Mack on thin ice instead of straight-up kicking him out. She needed all the men she could get right now, even if that meant a brown-noser like Mack. Riley couldn't show weakness like that to the boys either, even regret for a murder- any loss of credibility could lead to a loss of control, something she'd learned to keep hold of with an iron grip.

They paused outside of the barn, Riley cupping her hands to amplify her voice. "ANDERSON SENT ME," she shouted, and a head popped out of a gap in the rafters. Even from here, they could see it was a ghoul.

"'Bout time you got here, Hayes. Come on in," he said, gruffly, before pulling his head back inside.

Nick heard Hayes ready her gun.

“Ghouls, huh?” He kept his revolver in a steady two-handed grip, drawing the well-oiled safety back with hardly a sound.

When they walked inside they found themselves surrounded by a mixed group of humans and ghouls, the numbers mostly on the human side. Riley was clearly on her guard as the group circled them in. A cough led them to look to the head of the circle, a person, clearly the leader, lounging on what in a past life was a tractor, pulled apart and reassembled into something someone could sit in. Their face was covered with a hockey mask with a sizable chip in the upper edge.

"You Mordecai?" Riley asked. Already something here didn't feel right, and she was fighting every instinct to run. Sometimes, she knew, these gangs tried to look more intimidating then they actually were on the first meeting.

Nick knew things were going to get bad the second they set foot inside the crumbling barn. Under the sweetness of old hay and rotten wood there was something else, something you only had to smell once to never forget. The place stank of death. The men at their back followed them too closely and when he turned his head the nearest face was a bland, careful blank. Nobody was ever that nonchalant about coming face to face with a synth unless they already knew they could kill one. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

"Riley Hayes, you massive fucking idiot," the leader laughed, lifting their mask to reveal a woman with a rather impressive scar on her left cheek. "I can't believe you fell for this!"

"You got a new man in your troupe, Chain," Riley said, her voice measured despite the rising panic in her.

"Sorry doll!" shouted the ghoul, from the rafters.

"Fuck you, Anderson," Riley replied shortly.

"So, Hayes, you've had ample time to consider my request." Chain stood, striding over. "You going to hand over that mini-nuke cache or are we gonna have to beat it out of you?"

 _Nukes??_ Nick could only think of one thing worse than an organized gang of gun-running scumbags with access to mini-nukes, and that was this disorganized bunch of borderline psychopaths getting their paws on the things. He drew closer to Riley’s back as Chain approached, keeping an eye out for anyone sneaking up in the rear. They were drastically outnumbered, but that didn’t have to be a major problem… yet.

“Does this broad think you carry those things around in your back pocket?” he said out loud to Riley, playing along. “I wouldn’t have given her credit for that much imagination.”

Chain narrowed her eyes "Oh look, you brought some spare parts for us. Where's Mack, Hayes?"

"Shut it, Chain," Riley snapped. "For the last time, I'm not selling those nukes to you, and telling you the code for the boxes isn’t something I'm keen on doing either."

Chain straightened, her face darkening. "Should have taken the caps when you could, Hayes."

Most people would have started shooting right there and then, but Riley, through either stupidity or adrenaline, kept talking. "I'm not letting anyone ever get their hands on them if I can help it. Now, let us go, and I might let you live." To her, the threat felt empty, but she delivered it with such ice that even she believed it a little.

It was a heck of a bluff, surrounded as they were by a tightening circle of heavily-armed men. Nick saw more than one of them pause and glance at each other. Perhaps they were wondering if there was more to this than met the eye, if Riley had some dangerous ace up her sleeve. Hell, it even crossed Nick’s mind. She sounded so damn _sure…_

Chain hesitated, but not for too long. “Grab ‘em, boys,” she growled. “We’ll get answers one way or another.”

Riley drew her laser pistol, aimed with a steady hand, and fired. The beam hit a steel fastener on a rope hanging from the ceiling, dropping its payload of near-petrified hay onto two men, buying a little time and making an opening. A few gunshots rang out, and as Riley lunged for the double-doors she felt a hand grab her wrist and yank her back. She lifted her foot, stamping it as hard as she could into the man's abdomen. He wheezed and doubled up as the air left his lungs.

"Valentine! Time to go!"

 _Jesus,_ she could shoot. Nick kept right on her tail as she dodged around the tractor and into the cover of a stack of steel drums that he could only hope had never been used to store gas or diesel or anything else that could go up with a bullet. There were certainly more than enough spare bullets in the barn to go round. Fragments of hay whirled through the dry air and stray shots kicked up dust at their feet as the gang tried to cut off their escape. Nick was pretty sure he’d heard Chain yelling about not killing the pair of them until she had what she wanted, but from what he could tell most of her subordinates hadn’t gotten the message.

He leaned from cover, drew a bead on an incautious ghoul, fired. A throaty scream told him he’d hit his mark as he drew back behind the barrels, hunkered down. “I count ten. Nine if that guy you nailed in the gut makes the smart choice and stays down.”

“A little too many for my liking. Nice shot by the way,” she said, plugging in a fresh fusion cell, flinching down when a bullet hit close to her head. She peeked out of cover in time to see one trying to round the tractor to pin them down. Aiming, she waited for the man to get in her sights before firing and he fell to the dirt.

“Eight, on the other hand, might be manageable. Any ideas on how to get out of here?” she shouted over the din. “Pretty sure these guys aren’t just gonna let us walk through them to get to those doors. Either way, we gotta hurry, because once Chain gets her ripper out, we might be done for.”

On Nick’s right, an optimist in a tattered leather jacket was trying to sneak between the sparse cover of hay bales to get close. Nick fired close to his feet, and when that failed to dissuade him, put a bullet in his shoulder. The man dropped, yelling.

A hollow little _SPAK_ sound pulled Nick’s attention from the general chaos to the worn steel barrel against his shoulder. A small dark hole had appeared in the metal, a small dark hole from which, to Nick’s horror, a clearish fluid started trickling. It smelled sharp, chemical. He guessed either ancient weedkiller or creosote, not that it mattered which. Both were plenty flammable.

“I think we just found our distraction.” He pulled Riley away from their makeshift cover, towards the barn’s one set of rickety wooden stairs. There was a hayloft up there, and where there was a hayloft there surely had to be some sort of loading shaft, a way out. Even if there wasn’t, the puddle of fluid was spreading fast, pooling out into the open. “Get to the stairs- I’ll cover you!”

Riley crinkled her nose when she smelled the fluid. She didn’t have the slightest clue what it was, but anything that smelt that harsh was bound to be bad news. “I’m trusting you on this Valentine!” she yelled, then waited for a break in the firing before she leapt from cover and started to climb the stairs. Several men shot at once, and Riley made it about halfway up the stairs before she felt a streak of pain on her upper arm. Her shirt ripped, and already she felt blood oozing over her skin. Some intuition told her she hadn’t been hit bad, but if she’d been on the next step up, the bullet would have gone straight through her wrist.

The burning pain made her stumble, lying against the stairs for a moment before she was quickly back on her feet and reached the top. Biting her cheek against the pain, she pulled herself into cover. “Whatever you’re thinking, it better work!”

Nick had just about made it to the cover of the balcony himself before another stray bullet thudded into the spreading pool of liquid. Glancing back, he had about half a second to see a flashback of flames leap across the glossy surface before a bright light and a _WUMP_ of heat slammed up the stairs. The barrels had ignited.

He threw up his sleeve against a patter of burning shrapnel and pulled himself down next to her. “There’s a big hatch in that gable up ahead. Here’s hoping we can get out on the roof before this whole place goes up-”

She held up her good arm to cover herself as well. The air was already wavering from the heat. The fire was growing so fast that most of the attention was off them, giving them breathing room, but the barn was filling fast with smoke. Riley moved, gritting her teeth as the new gash made itself known. “Fuck,” she swore under her breath. “Good eye, let’s move before we calculate our odds.”

Holding her arm, she slid from cover, the floor groaning under her feet as she ran. She rammed into the hatch to open it, grunting in pain as her body loudly stated its opinion against the action. Thank God her good arm still worked. Aiming the laser pistol, she blew off the lock, shouldering the hatch open. She held it open, yelling back at Nick.

“C’mon!"

Nick had barely taken three steps towards the hatch before a clatter of heavy feet on the stairs stopped him in his tracks. Through the rising wreath of smoke he could make out the ghoul, Anderson, and Chain. They looked varying degrees of furious and scared, but it was the thing in the ghoul’s hands that Nick saw first. It looked like a Gauss rifle, and he had it levelled right at Riley.

Nick didn’t stop to think. There were three bullets left in his gun and before the ghoul’s finger could move on the rifle’s trigger he’d put two of them in that desiccated brain. Anderson was dead before he hit the floor.

Riley froze when she found the rifle aimed at her, the heavy hatch rooting her to the spot. Nick’s quick thinking saved her life, but Chain ducked for cover when Nick fired, letting out a furious yell as Anderson hit the floorboards. The raider pulled a cord from the weapon in her hand, her infamous Ripper starting up with a rusty grunt that grew to a dull roar that rose over the din of the fire. “Screw the nukes, I’m not letting you two get out of here alive!!”

Riley went for her Colt, stepping out from under the hatch. It was difficult to get a steady shot with just one good arm as Chain went for the closest person: Nick.

Another thunderous report shook the boards under their feet– the fire had caught another barrel. Nick stumbled, keeping his balance but barely ducking the enraged woman’s first swing. Her favourite weapon was heavy, buzzing through the air with a nasty, meaty sound as she swung it up for a strike at his face. Rippers were ghastly things, designed to deal maximum damage to flesh and blood, but that didn’t mean he wanted this one anywhere near his own plastic hide either.

Aiming as best she could, Riley fired, the bullet missing her mark and hitting the opposite wall, but it hit close enough to give Chain a moments hesitation. She refocused, the Ripper roaring in her ears as the floor lurched. The fire was eating away at the supports, making the boards treacherous. Riley bit through the pain, already aiming again as another wild swing of the Ripper narrowly missed Nick once more.

Nick could feel the heat through the soles of his shoes. Already the boards around them were starting to smoke as the fire raced through the dry hay and stockpiled chemicals and arms below. Chain lunged forwards, cursing hoarsely. Nick brought up his revolver and fired as he stumbled back... and buried his last bullet in the wall.

Chain loomed over him, laughing as he missed. “Outta luck _synth!”_ she laughed, bringing the Ripper down.

It never made contact.

Chain froze, her eyes glazing over in an instant as a new hole, just above her ear, made itself comfortable. She deflated, crumpling to the floor, and the Ripper fell from her hand, buzzing away, wriggling like a worm desperate to escape.

Speaking of escape…

Riley lowered her gun, panting, her arm screaming as well as her sixth sense. The building lurched again as the third barrel went up. “Nick, c’mon, we don’t know if that tractor could go up!” she shouted, grunting as she tried to shoulder the hatch open again.

Nick didn’t need to be told twice. He shoved Chain’s body from his legs and hurried to put his back against the hatch alongside Riley, and between them they burst it open and fell out onto the battered stretch of tin roof that lapped the barn’s first storey. The rusty metal was already growing warm to the touch.  
   
He followed her, waiting for her to let herself down and drop safely to the ground on the roof’s sagging north side. It looked like the rain might make short work of the fire, but as he followed her down off the roof it was still burning brightly, glowing through every splintered board in the barn’s sides and blazing from the wide doors as if the building was a portal straight to Hell. They’d got out just in time.  
 

“You alright?” he said, once she’d caught her breath. “Let me see that arm."

She slowed and stood there for a moment once they’d put some distance between themselves and the barn, the rain mingling with the blood on her shirt, making it run down her arm. There was no other movement besides the flickering flames. If anyone else had escaped the inferno, they were probably long gone.

“M’alright, for the most part, thanks…” she huffed, plopping down into the dirt with a heavy sigh. By the looks of it, the bullet had left a heavy gash on her upper left arm, just below the shoulder. “Ah, fuck, that stings,” she winced, unfastening the first few buttons of her flannel shirt. Carefully, she let Nick remove the fabric. The skin on the back of her shoulder was wrinkled, the marks almost ghoulish in their pattern. They looked like burn scars.

“You saved my ass back there,” Nick said, mopping rainwater and blood out of the wound with a torn strip of his shirt. There was a little cover in this spinney of twisted trees, not much, and the rain soon came trickling through and spotting on the ground in heavy splats. Not for the first time, Nick wished he had some kind of coat to his name. “They weren’t kidding about that eye of yours. Who taught you to shoot like that?”

She flinched only a little, admiring how gentle he could be with that sharp metal hand of his. “My dad,” she explained. She figured if he’d saved her life, she might as well trust him with the truth. “Entered me in trap shooting competitions as a kid. Mom didn’t approve, made me stop when I was a teenager because she was worried- here, should be a gauze patch in my bag- worried about what the neighbours would think."

“Easy,” he cautioned, as she fumbled for her bag. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He found the patch himself, along with a stim, easing the needle into her arm. He was half-listening, concentrating on finding the vein. “That’s a pretty archaic attitude for a parent these days. Most people would be pretty happy to think their kid could fend for themselves out here.”

“Heh…” She was beginning to feel light headed now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “Yeah… wasn’t that important, back then, everyone was more concerned about China n’ the nukes…” The words spilled out, half conscious half not. She wasn’t sure if it was the blood loss or just the fact that it felt good to finally tell somebody.

Nick stopped tying up her arm in a makeshift sling, leaning back on his haunches to look hard at her. She had his full attention now. The Pip-Boy, the old-fashioned tastes…

“What’re you telling me, Hayes? You’re talking about over two hundred years ago… and you sure as hell ain’t any ghoul, unless they stretched the definition recently. Aside from the ‘just-got-winged’ pallor, you don’t look a day over thirty, tops.”

"Thirty-four." She smiled, tiredly. "The day the bombs fell... my family had space in the nearby vault." The heat. The screaming. She remembered Andy's face. Her expression turned a bit far off, recounting the painful memories in as short as summary she could muster.

"They put us in... some sort of cryogenic storage. But when the timer ran out, I was the only one who woke up." She sighed. "Wasteland chewed me up, spit me out stronger," she concluded, frowning deeply as her fingers reached up and brushed her scarred shoulder. "Made sure to leave reminders."

“You’re kiddin’ me...”

Nick stared at her, his mechanical hand stealing up to tilt the brim of his hat against the rain, to see her clearer. It all fit. It was crazy, but it fit. She wasn’t so far gone that she’d spin a yarn like this just out of delirious wishful thinking, and if she was lying- and a damn good liar, way better than she’d seemed, at that- he couldn’t imagine what she thought she’d get out of it. After all, she didn’t know his own tangled little secret. She didn’t know that if she was telling the truth, it made her the only other person from his own time- _Nick’s_ time- that he’d ever seen, alive and unaltered by the rads. She was a living piece of history.

 If it was true.

He shifted, refocusing on the sling, tying a good knot and releasing her arm. “Well, I could quiz ya till the cows came home and it wouldn’t prove anything. I never heard of cryogenic storage… Vault-Tec sure kept that one quiet, didn’t they? Not that it’s such a great leap,” he added, grimly, “considering some people stayed out of the vaults and just plain didn’t die.”

She accepted his help in getting up, her head clearer now that the Stimpak was kicking in. “Vault-Tec didn’t care if we lived or died. The cowards abandoned the experiment before they could see it through.” There was venom in her voice. She looked to her Pip-Boy. The screen was spattered with raindrops, but she could still make out the map. She began to lead the way home.

“Alright, I gave a little, now you owe me. I have some questions for you.” Her voice was back to its usual businesslike tone. “I may not know much about the Institute, but I know for sure none of the synths I’ve ever encountered looked or acted like you.”

For a little while back there, the boundaries between them had shifted. In the danger and in its aftermath, he’d let go of the dangerous game he was playing and she’d dropped her guard, and a tenuous, equal connection had sparked between them. The brisk note of her question brought them both back down to earth.

“Well, that makes two of us,” he sighed, wringing a little water out of his shirt-tail and taking a moment to check that none of the rain was leaking inside his systems. “I’m a prototype, one-of-a-kind. I don’t know what those scientists were trying to prove, but they figured it was a bright idea to copy a human mind into the body of a synth. I’ve got these… memories, this personality, because of who he… because of who that human was.”

He watched her picking her way ahead of him, his yellow eyes glowing through the rain. “That was over a century ago. Whatever they were hoping for, I guess I didn’t measure up.”

She slowed, clearly digesting what he had told her. “And this human… I’m guessing he lived before the bombs dropped?” she asked, hugging her arm close as the rain turned cold. “Well, that explains some things.”

Riley sighed before turning, looking him up and down. Her eye seemed less critical, but it lacked that morbid curiosity most had when they looked him over.  It was a bit more… gentle, normal, like one centuries-old soul looking at another. “I’ll admit I don’t completely understand half of what you said- might be the blood loss- but it sounds like a heckuva time. N’here I was thinking _I_ had problems. So... they let you go, or did you have to fight your way out?”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t blame you for being confused. It’s a lot for most people to take on board. That’s why I don’t blab it around, it makes it even harder for people to figure out how to take me. No, like I said, the Institute tossed me in the garbage when I didn’t turn out how they wanted… or maybe I just got old. I don’t remember much about it, just waking up in a dump with a lot of fog in my head and a whole bunch of holes in the rest of me.”

He touched his ragged neck with his bare hand in a simple demonstration, smiled wryly. “For the rest of it, it goes without saying the Commonwealth’s not a great place if you’re trying to stay mint-condition. My mind may be pre-war, but the rest of me only took a few decades to get this good-looking.”

Riley’s eyes lingered on him. _You and me both,_ she thought, the words hanging on her lips. They were both damaged, both thrown into a new world that scarred them with little regard.

“Still looking pretty good from where I’m standing, as long as you can fix a generator.” She added the last part as an afterthought, a rehearsed toughness.

They found cover when they could, in abandoned trucks and the occasional lean-to as the day’s light started to fade. “Should be back at the bunker soon,” Riley announced, checking her Pip-Boy to be sure. “Look, you promise not to blab my sob-story to the boys?"

“My lips are sealed,” he said, simply but sincerely, fishing a battered cigarette from his pocket. He judged it was just dry enough to catch. “You got a light?”


	3. Blown Cover

_“I don’t want to set the world on fire…”_

Riley leaned back in her armchair, closing her eyes as her weary head sunk into the fabric. Freshly bandaged, the gash on her arm was throbbing, stopping any attempt to forget about the day and just relax. She hadn’t told the boys much. Their celebration party had been well underway by the time she and Nick returned, drenched and tired. Half of them were probably too drunk by that point to comprehend their story even if they’d wanted to tell it. Instead she’d bid him goodnight and retreated to her sanctuary.

  _“I just want to start… a flame in your heart…”_

Nick Valentine. She couldn’t get him off her mind. For now, she was taking his story at face value. He didn’t seem to have any reason to lie to her, and even if he did, he was a bit mad to lie to the person who just saved his plastic rear. Whoever this human had been, whoever he was now, they were rather clever. _He_ was clever, and as she thought of him, she realized she was smiling. They were more similar then she’d thought, both of them just trying to make their way through a world that forced them to do things they never thought they would. Like gun running, and setting barns on fire and… indirectly being part of the murder of an innocent young girl. It weighed heavily on her mind, and she was sure karma would get her for it someday.

Her thoughts drifted back to Nick, and her face softened. At least she had him now.

 

Nick never fretted himself too much about karma, judging that things left up to fate to do tended to stay undone. Alone in the bunker’s deserted mess hall, he tipped his chair back against the wall and surveyed the sea of gun parts and abandoned machinery around him. Although he’d been here nearly a week, nobody had said anything about a bed, or a space of his own. Not that he wanted a place here, among this assortment of reprobates, but the thought would have been nice.

Over the last century or so, Nick had learned to welcome pretty much any nod to his humanity, no matter how slight or grudging. To most people he was a tool, one step up from furniture. These hardened men took him as a useful machine, impossible to tire and good for a joke, somewhere between a Mr. Handy and a performing bear. It didn’t occur to him that his joints might ache or his head hurt from focusing, or that the spectre of a furious madwoman lurching at him through a curtain of flame with a deadly blade in her fist might take him more than a quick diagnostic to forget.

Nick tipped his damp hat down over his eyes, prepared to wait out the night. _She_ had looked at him with real understanding, in that moment before the wall went back up behind her eyes. There was a puzzle there, and her story about the vault was only the first key. Maybe figuring out the deal with the nukes was a step towards the second.

Riley woke up in the middle of the night. The clock she had fixed herself, a shaky mess of duct tape and correct gears placed by sheer luck, read three AM. She sat up, her book in her lap falling to the concrete with a soft thump. Her arm was complaining, sore as the gash assured itself that she wasn’t going to be sleeping in her normal position anytime soon. Her stomach also reminded her that she had barely eaten anything since she and Nick returned.

Standing, she ran her fingers through her hair. At least by now most of the boys would be asleep, so she probably didn’t need to bother getting dolled up for a quick trip to the commissary. She clicked a key on her terminal in passing, and the door to her sanctuary slid shut as she left the office for downstairs.

Nick looked up at the sound of footsteps echoing down the steel staircase. He had been stripping and cleaning his gun, sleeves rolled up, the parts laid out on the bench before him. When he saw it was her, he laid down the revolver and shot her arm a keen glance.

“I thought you’d be resting up.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said shortly, moving to the fridge and opening it. “Dammit, out of Fancy Lads. Angus must have ate ‘em all,” she muttered to herself, reaching in and picking out an apple. She let the door shut on its own and walked up to Nick, taking a bite. “Why are you up?"

“Sleep’s more of an optional extra for a bot like me,” said Nick. He picked his hat out of the mess of gun parts and set it back on his head. “I’ll run an extended diagnostic every once in a while, that takes me out for an hour or so, but for the most part, I don’t bother.”

“Suppose that still leaves one bed open, good to know,” she assumed, sitting across the table from him. Her eyes roamed the parts on the desk and she picked up the barrel, scrutinizing it. “Pretty thorough job here, Valentine. I’m guessing that special hand of yours can easily get into some of the tougher spots. I always have trouble with those.”

Riley set the barrel down and took another bite of apple. It was apparent she was thinking about something.

“Muscle memory.” He picked up the carcass of the revolver and spun the cylinder, feeling the smooth whirr of the action for any trace of grit. “I woke up just knowing most of this stuff- I guess you could say it’s a gift from the original Nick Valentine. The rest is just plain old practice… and necessity.”

He glanced across at her. “Back in that barn… did you mean all that line about not letting anyone get their hands on those mini-nukes, or was that just talk?”

“This bunker used to belong to the military, obviously,” she started. “Not sure what branch, but I could care less. When I originally found this place, I came across two old locked cases in the basement. Found a holotape with the codes, but it broke after playing it once. I opened them up to find a cache of mini-nukes.” She toyed with the apple in her hand, looking at it for a moment before her eyes met his.

“I may be a gun-runner, but I at least have some morals. If it’ll help keep the world from getting fucked up even further, then by God, I’ll make sure those things always stay under lock and key. I made the mistake of telling Mack about them, and he treats them as leverage.”

“That guy’s a weasel,” Nick growled. “You keep letting him cosy up to you and you’re apt to wake up one of these days with something sharp in your back, and I ain’t talking a stray toothpick.”

“I’m kicking myself for not realizing it sooner,” she admitted. “The sooner he gets back from DC, the sooner I’m gonna cut ties with him… somehow. I fire him straight out, he’ll come back to bite me.”

Nick blinked. Something Mack had said, standing not so far from where Riley was sitting right now, struck him with a new significance. A sickly charge went through him, a buzz like a jittery little livewire somewhere deep down in his gut. He’d _forgotten-_

He set the revolver down with a _clunk,_ sitting up straight. “Say, he’s heading to DC? You know, he’s got something planned with this Reed character you’re dealing with. All that excitement last night put it clear out of my head, but whatever it is, he seems to think it’s going to impress you. Given that guy’s predilections,” he added, under his breath, “I’d be a little concerned about his judgement at this point.”

She narrowed her eyes “What’d he say?"

“Well, to tell the truth he was more focused on insulting me than giving me any serious detail, but he said it was going to be a big surprise.”

Riley’s face dropped like a stone as something dawned on her, and she practically leapt from her chair.

“Follow me-” she said, shortly. Running out of the mess, she headed down a flight of steel stairs that descended into darkness. She pulled a rusty key from her pocket, a key hanging from a loose chain that had been made into a sort of makeshift necklace. Unlocking the door, she barrelled inside.

The room was definitely an old armoury, picked clean for supplies and guns. Nick could figure easily that there had once been enough in there to give her gun-running business a healthy start. All that remained now were two green metal trunks on the floor, and Riley, kneeling in front of one of them, fiddling with the lock.

Nick was right behind her. He’d known what she had to be thinking from the second he saw the key and how safe she kept it, and even as she was fighting with the stiff lock, he had a queasy presentiment of what she might be about to find.

"No… nonono-" Riley gripped at her hair, staring into the empty trunk. She lunged across, unlocking the other one. Those ones were still there, but it did little to soothe her. "That son of a bitch! If he thinks he can just-"

She didn't finish her sentence. She closed and locked the boxes again, shoving angrily past Nick and sprinting up the stairs.

Nick followed, at a slower pace. Her boots thudded loud enough down the hallways to bring the lighter sleepers to their doors- and in a bunker full of trigger-happy miscreants, there were guaranteed to be a _lot_ of light sleepers. By the time she came to a halt back in the mess upstairs, she had half her gang at her heels.

_“Hayes!”_

A clear voice rang across the room, loud enough to get the group’s attention. Mack stood at the bottom of the stairs, an empty duffle bag in one hand, a sack hanging on the opposite shoulder. He had the widest grin on his face, the beam of a proud man who knew he was about to win.

“The DC tradeoff went without a hitch, and Reed was more then happy to cough up double for my extra incentive-” He shrugged the sack backpack off, tossing it across the room, and the sound it made as it landed at Riley’s feet told the group the thing was brimming with caps. Riley looked from the bag to him, fire in her eyes.

“Mack, you are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to let you off the hook-”

“I found out something else in DC,” Mack interrupted, cool in the face of Riley’s anger. “You’re gonna want to hear this. But first, where’s your new best boy? _Hey, Valentine!”_

Nick pushed his way to the front, winding up just between Angus and Chloe, who both looked half-asleep. He could tell right away that Mack’s confidence was bad news. Not half as bad in the scheme of things as the knowledge that someone with less-than-kind intentions for Diamond City had just bagged a cache of mini-nukes for their own personal use, but pretty bad nonetheless.

That funny little smirk, the one that made Nick feel inclined to smack it right off him, widened across Mack’s face as he spotted the synth behind Riley’s shoulder. Nick didn’t budge- hell, where could he have gone?- just stood his ground and stared back, grimly. He was already pretty sure what was coming.

“Valentine.” Mack stretched out his name like he was seeing a friend for the first time in a while. “I learned something very interesting about you in DC. You sly dog... you really thought you could get away with this, didn’t you?”

Riley raised her arm in a sort of protective gesture in front of Nick. “Get to the point, Mack, you’re not impressing anyone.”

“You should be thanking me, Hayes.” Mack took a few steps closer, his eyes never leaving Nick until they met Riley’s. “I’m about to prevent you from being _burned_ again. Valentine here-” He raised his voice so the whole group could hear. “-hails from the great dim jewel itself! And even better, he’s here to ‘investigate’ a ‘murder.’” He mimed finger quotes. “The comeuppance of a girl who just couldn’t keep her nose out of a gun deal!”

“What are you saying?” Riley said, quietly, her voice betraying that she was putting the pieces together already.

“Valentine’s no outta-work synth. He’s a mole for Diamond City!”

A loud mutter ran through the gang like an angry wind. Nick took a step forwards, but Chloe’s fist tightened in the back of his shirt and before he knew it four of them had a hold of him, pulling him back against the steel wall. They didn’t even have to worry about his gun- it was still in pieces, right there on the table.

He saw they were looking to Riley, looking at Mack, waiting for some kind of cue. Nick was scared plenty- there were enough of them to straight-up tear him to pieces, if they wanted to- but he was angry enough at Mack’s mocking dismissal of Penny’s murder to shake off Angus’s arm like it was made of paper and make a lunge at the smug bastard, who jumped back in a hurry but not quite quick enough to avoid a thump in the jaw that knocked him back on his ass. Three others piled on Nick from behind, weighing him down, but it was almost worth it just to see that smarmy grin disappear.

Chloe won out, her knee in Nick’s back as she pinned his hands behind him. Mack staggered to his feet, his hand cupping his jaw where a bruise was sure to form. Nicks hat, falling off in the skirmish, had landed at Rileys feet.

“What d’ya think, boss?” Mack scowled down at him. “I say we let the boys deal with him.” There was a murmur of agreement.

Riley’s eyes reflected hurt only for a moment before they were ice again. “No. And if we kick him out, he’ll just run off and bring DC security right to our doorstep.” She picked up his hat, letting it hang limp from her hand. “Chloe, take him down to holding until we figure out what to do with him.”

Some of the boys groaned, protesting that their lynch had been stopped. “WILL ALL OF YOU SHUT YOUR TRAPS!” Riley screamed authoritatively, her face red. The room went silent. “All of you back to your bunks. You’ll all get your cut of the caps in the morning. I hear any more peeps, you’ll be joining Valentine, understood?”

No-one dared to say anything. She leaned down, snatching up the bag of caps and muttering something to Mack before turning to go.

“C’mon, get a move on.” Chloe forced Nick to his feet.

 

* * *

 

The bunker’s lockup was dark and damp. It felt as if it was miles under the earth, with a smell of sodden metal and a blueish tint to the ancient strip lighting that made everything look sallow and dull. Nick’s cell was small and comfortless, and it smelled like someone in the fairly recent past had used it as a bathroom.

He’d paced himself half dizzy, turning back and forth like a trapped zoo animal. He couldn’t help beating himself up for not taking off and heading back to DC when he’d had the chance. He could have cut away right after the chaos at the barn and she wouldn’t have been able to stop him. Instead of which, he was stuck down here, probably heading for some kind of summary execution, while some scavver with a grudge and a case-full of nukes had God-knew-what planned for the city. _His_ city.

The sound of feet on rickety metal stairs echoed from afar, putting an end to the silence. He recognized Chloe's voice.

"Nah, guy hasn't made a peep. Be sharp around him, boss."

"Thank you, Chloe."

Riley rounded the corner, the dull light only accentuating the stone-set look on her face. She stopped at his cell, his hat in her hand. She simply stared for a moment, saying nothing.

Nick was up off the concrete bench in an instant, gripping the bars. “Hayes. Listen, you gotta let me out of here. Whatever this guy has planned with those nukes, the city needs to know before-”

"What was her name?" She interrupted him, her tone measured. "The girl Mack killed, what was her name?"

He stopped.

“Penny,” he said. “Her name was Penny Hoyt.”

"Penny..." she echoed, a small crack in her voice. She looked away for a moment, letting out a sigh as her free hand massaged her temples. Her panic from before seemed to have turned to resigned acceptance. "The poor girl…"

“Yeah,” said Nick, shortly. “Her mom- Miranda- she runs a stall out of Diamond City Market. Just a hole-in-the-wall, selling scrap and fixing up junk for sale. I used to spend a lot of time down there myself, repairing old parts so Miranda could sell them on, we had a kinda deal going.”

He drew a breath. “Penny was a good kid, she used to mind the shop while her mom was out lookin’ for more stock. I used…” A pause. “I guess now I can tell you, Nick Valentine- the old Nick- he was a cop. I’ve got a head full of pre-war cop stories, and Penny… she liked that stuff. I told her all about a bunch of old cases, and she just ate it up. I was just trying to entertain a bored kid… I didn’t even consider she might go getting ideas.”

Nick let go of the bars. “Next thing I know she’s turned up missing, and her friends tell me she was talking about bringing down some shady gun deal… Bottom line, Riley, your boy Mack killed her, but I put the thought in her head. That’s on me.”

Riley listened, looking up at him when he blamed himself. “And the moment you got a chance to bring justice, you decided to infiltrate it," she finished. "But this is a different world than you and I remember, Nick. There will be no trial, no jury, just a bullet to the head. Mack probably deserves one, but me? I've fought too long and hard to let a degenerate passing as a cop in an umpire uniform end my life."

Her eyes met his. "Or a bucket of bolts who thought he could get my guard down."

Nick’s eyes flared in the dark. “You don’t have to tell me it’s a different world. I’ve lived in it a damn sight longer than you have, remember? And you’ve got one hell of a nerve, come to that, sittin’ on top of that fancy collection of yours, preaching about degeneration in this world when you’re not doing one thing to make it a better place. Not for you- not for anyone.”

He slammed his metal hand against the bars in frustration, striking a jarring note. “Someone like you could have done a lot of good in a place like this. So much for that.”

The _clang_ of the bars made her flinch. "You don't think I've tried?!" she fired back. Her body loosened, folding her arms. "Shortly after I got out of the vault, I got wrapped up in a group. They said they were trying to make the world a better place too." Her eyes were locked on the floor. "The moment I let my guard down, they tried to take everything I had. I resisted, and… well, you saw how well that went for me.” She touched her scarred shoulder. “I was lucky to get out of there with just my Pip-Boy and the clothes I was standing up in. Found a building to hole up in until I could feel my back again.”

Her head lifted, the light catching a glimmer of moisture in her eye. "I decided I'd never be that naive again. Seems like I broke that promise."

He felt for her. Of course he felt for her- his memories of those first days in the wastes were blurry and painful, and he knew all too well what it took out of you, struggling to get a grip on a ruined world that didn’t care if you lived or died. He knew how hard it was to see any worth to it, to even keep trying. He understood, and with an effort he swallowed his urgency and anger and looked her right in the eye.

“It’s never naive to try and help people when you can. God knows I’m no saint, kid, but if I’ve learned one thing it’s that goodness- real goodness- it ain’t a virtue or a trait, it’s a choice. One you have to make every day. It’s hard, sure, and you screw up, and it hurts, but you can’t let it stop you because if that survived, just- people, being decent and brave, if that survived- then we didn’t lose everything.”

Riley was silent for a bit, clearly thinking.

“I tried that too, Nick.” Her voice cracked. “Those nukes… when I saw them I figured it was the one thing I had control over. I chose to never let those things out there, where someone could use them against someone else.” A weighty sigh passed her lips. “But I couldn’t even handle that. And now Mack’s told me that maniac Reed plans to plant them all around the field and set ‘em all off at once. All I had to do was leave something alone, and I fucked that up too.”

“He told you _what??”_ Nick was up again, fire and desperation and not a small amount of panic. “Then what are you still doing here? Don’t you get it, if you honestly feel so cut up about Penny, this is your chance to save an entire city from something ten times worse! This isn’t about control, or you, or me- there are _people_ there, Riley, innocent people just living day-to-day, they did nothing to you!”

He splayed his mismatched hands against the bars. “Hell, I don’t care if you leave me to rot down here, you have to go warn them before it’s too late!”

“A city that will hang me even if I save it-”

Before Nick could protest she stopped herself, gripping a bar to stay upright. She’d finally had enough. All the things she’d done, the people she’d left to lie dead or robbed, were nothing compared to what she had just let happen.

For the first time in a long time, Riley Hayes wore fear openly on her face.

“I... I don’t know what to do, Nick,” Her voice cracked. “God… what have I done...?”

Her hand was on the bars. Nick put his own grey hand on hers. He wished it was more human, more comforting, a better argument, but it was all he had.

“Nothing yet, kid,” he said. “It starts, when you decide.”

Her fingers curled about his, giving a squeeze she didn’t even know if he could feel. He must have, because he returned it. After a moment she lifted her eyes, blue meeting bright yellow.

“If I go… you’re coming with me. They must know you there, they’ll be more inclined to listen to you then a gun-runner like me. I know where Mack was meeting Reed in DC, that’ll be a good place to start looking for the nukes. We might get there in time to stop him.”

"That's the best damn idea you've had yet," said Nick.

* * *

 

Riley threw open the door to her office, the two of them entering swiftly. Good thing the rest of the bunker was still asleep.

“Sorry about hitting you back there, had to convince Chloe I was only letting you out to rough you up.”

She went to her desk, digging out a piece of paper. The invoice from the deal. She flipped it over, pen marks scrawled on the back. “Mack said Reed had a message for me, wrote it down…” She froze when her eyes scanned the back.

Nick came up behind her, still rubbing his jaw. “What does it say?”

“Thanks for Nukes, Prepare for A new Valentines day Massacre,” she read aloud. “What’s today?”

“Well, my inner clock never was the most accurate, but I figure it’s the twelfth,” said Nick, taking the note and reading it over himself. “We might have just enough time.”

She turned to a row of lockers behind her, unlocking it with her key and throwing it open. “Got some supplies in here, we’ll need everything we can get.” She grabbed the Pip-Boy, slipping it on her wrist, the thing turning on and warming up as she grabbed a box hidden in the tails of battered trenchcoat.

Nick whistled. "That's quite the arsenal you've got there."

She’d tossed his hat on her desk as the note had caught her attention. He picked it up and set it back on his head before digging through an old crate for a worn leather shoulder-holster. He’d never worn one before in his synthetic life, but his fingers remembered, passing the strap under his arm and cinching the buckle close.

“You, uh, don’t know what happened to my gun, by any chance…?”

She pulled out a shoebox, setting it down on the desk with a _thump._ Reaching in, she pulled out the remains of his revolver, assembling them all together like they were nothing more then a well-rehearsed constructor block set. She gave the cylinder a confident spin before offering the gun to him, butt first. “Here ya go.”

It was a good thing that Riley was focused so intently on preparing for the task ahead of her. She turned back to her collection of assorted ammo, missing the irrepressible smile that spread across Nick’s battered face. He’d seen a sharpshooter or two in his time, but her cool dexterity was in another league entirely. He could tell there was something just a little lazy about her technique, a little lackadaisical, spot-on as it was, and even that was scary- she wasn’t pushing herself, and she could probably be even better if she tried, if she really had something to fight for.

 She was something, all right.

“It’s a long way to DC,” she sighed, grabbing a red plaid jacket and pulling it on, the sleeve bunching where it met her Pip-Boy. Pausing and considering for a moment, she grabbed the trenchcoat from the locker. The thing was old, the ends tattered from time.

“Here, catch.” She tossed it to Nick. “The thing’s too big for me, maybe it’ll fit you. Pretty sure it once belonged to whoever owned this place. I doubt he’ll be needing it now.”

Nick shrugged it on. It fit him pretty well, as far as clothes made for the softer give-and-take of human bodies ever fit the piecemeal metal and plastic structures under his shirt. More to the point, it suited him, faded and careworn as it was. It felt like an old friend.

There was a little too much hindrance in the loose cloth around his holster as he moved, so he knotted the belt loosely around his waist. _Better._

“Thanks. Time's blowing in our teeth here- I’m all set, if you’re ready.”

“Yeah, just a second-”

She turned back to the locker, pausing to look over her shoulder at him as he busied himself loading his gun. The coat really did fit him, quite well actually. The clothes made the man, and Nick made for a nice man. Even after all the shit she’d put him through, he was waiting for her, giving her this opportunity to fix what she’d wrought. Mack certainly wouldn’t have done that, nor Chloe, or… anyone she knew, really.  But he was. And he wasn’t doing this to save his hide or to chew her out, they were just... doing good.

They’d proved a good team before. Maybe, this time, she might actually do some good.

Remembering the time pressure, she shut the locker door, latching it again and shouldering her sack backpack. “All right. Let’s get out of here before the boys wake up.”

 

* * *

 

The first threads of dawn were creeping through the leaden Commonwealth sky by the time they lit out of the camp and set off across the rocks. The terrain was difficult and wearing, but they made good time, and by evening of the first day they made it up an incline and saw the great crumbling stretch of the Massachusetts Turnpike, the concrete pillars marching off into the distance like a giant’s playset.

"It's been awhile since I've been this close to Boston," Riley reflected. "Guess I never realized how long I'd cooped myself up."

There was a rumble in the distance. Green lighting streaked across the darkening sky, followed by an ethereal roar. "Been awhile since I've seen a rad storm too," she added, already looking about for shelter. "Guess that's as good a sign as any that we should call it a day."

“Yeah, and your Pip-Boy doesn’t sound too pleased,” said Nick, eyeing the sky, as a rattle of offended clicks started to flurry from the device on her wrist. “We better get you inside. I see an old motel sign down there… some of those buildings still look pretty intact. Let’s get moving.”

"Good spotting." She followed him down the cliffside, wincing every so often as her healing arm complained.

The motel looked like a dime-a-dozen roach-box, two stories of rooms with a dingy office off at the side. The pool was dry and cracked, home to a skeleton and a few mole-rats. Paint was peeling off the building, making it look as if it had been melting in the sun. The vermin seemed to pay no mind to Riley and Nick as they passed the pool.

Stepping up to a door, Riley shook the doorknob. Locked. Her Pip-Boy crackled in response to another flash of lightning, and she pulled out a bobby-pin from her hair, kneeling to unlock the door. "At least this one looks like it gives to the pin. None of the locks in the bunker do."

“I guess whoever used to own this fleatrap wasn’t particularly concerned with military security,” said Nick, absently. He kept watching the pool as she fiddled with the lock, one hand on his gun just in case the rats got any ideas. The air was turning sour, like dirty tin, making the hard resin of his teeth buzz unpleasantly.

After a moment the lock gave a satisfying click, and the door swung open. "Got it," Riley announced, slipping inside. It didn't smell any better in here, musty, the furniture covered in a layer of dust. Although it had been picked pretty clean, a suitcase lay open on the floor, a few useless belongings still in it.

"Looks like whoever rented this room was outside during Doomsday," Riley observed, shutting the door behind them.

“Poor bastard picked a hell of a day to go on vacation.” Some past drifter had tacked a thick layer of boards across the shattered window, nailing the heavy curtains over the top. Between that and the door, the room was well-proofed against the radstorm rising outside, and Riley’s Pip-Boy settled into near-silence once she was across the threshold.

“How’s the arm?” Nick checked the small closet and bathroom for any surprise room-mates. He was relieved to find everything pest-free, if you didn’t count the mice making a home under the old sink unit. At least they were normal-sized.

He stopped in the bathroom doorway, looking across at her. “And don’t say fine. I can tell it’s still bothering you.”

Riley shut her mouth as Nick pre-empted her answer. "Still healing," she admitted. "Still very sore. I should probably change the bandage."

She set her backpack on the bed, reaching inside. Now that they were out of the elements, her tiredness was catching up to her, discomfort blooming from the soles of her feet and in her shoulders. A whole day of walking could really take it out of someone, especially when they’d had so little sleep the night before. The storm announced its arrival outside, the rumbles echoing through the old building.

“Here, let me,” said Nick, mildly, setting his own pack down on the floor by the room’s one decaying armchair. “That’s an awkward place to reach with one hand. You need to rest up- we must have covered around twenty miles today.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, taken aback that he’d even asked. Not that everyone at the bunker was totally selfish, but none of them would ever have asked her if she needed help that gently. It was a caring tone, not one of begrudging help. She unbuttoned her shirt, lowering it so he could see her shoulder. The burns on her back were more noticeable, now that Nick knew the story behind them.

“Thank you…” she said, as he took the bandage she offered.

Nick started to unwrap the old bandage, letting out an amused kind of huff. “Okay, I can understand how you might be a little uneasy about accepting first-aid from someone who doesn’t even bleed, but believe me, I know how to do this.”

He tipped a little purified water onto the gauze and started to clean the wound. His touch was careful, practised. “Even discounting my human memories, if you have to make yourself useful around a place like Diamond City for any length of time, you’re gonna learn how to patch people up.”

She stayed still for him as he worked, flinching when the water hit the sore places. He worked so carefully and diligently, a soft human touch despite his mechanical parts. She found herself relaxing, a tension that had been held for years slowly giving slack thread by thread. “I imagine so. The wasteland’s not kind to the human body in any regard. Considering that, I suppose its a wonder you’re still in one piece. If you don’t mind me askin,’ you need repairs a lot? I imagine not many people, if any, have the manual for a synth.”

“Heh. No, and the Institute doesn’t exactly have an outlet for walk-up repairs. With the number of parts I’ve had fail, robot scrapyards like the one I woke up in are the only reason I’m still walking around at all.”

Folding a pad out of another scrap of gauze, he started to re-bandage the wound. “That and a few timely helping hands. Sure, I can fix myself up nine times out of ten, but there’s a few vital systems in this old chassis I can’t even reach… or don’t dare mess with. Let’s just say I’ve learned to rely on the kindness of strangers.”

He straightened up, looking critically at his work. “There, you’re done.”

Something about that sentence struck her. _The kindness of strangers._ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d completely trusted somebody, and here he was, braver then she ever was to let someone help him.

Shrugging her shoulder to see, she looked at his work. “Not bad, it’s feeling better already. Thanks.” There was a crack in her stone façade, and through it came a small, genuine smile. That worn face of his had a look on it that made her back relax. It was just him and her. She didn’t need to be cold or stoic or commanding, She didn’t need to assert she was above him. They were on the same level, and Riley found she quite liked it.

Nick smiled back. “Anytime. You better get some sleep while you can- we’re not going anywhere until this blows over.”

He glanced up at the stained ceiling. Somewhere up there, the irradiated sky flashed and howled, but the roof of the ruined motel was still good and the chaos outside was only a distant thunder. “I’ll let you know as soon as the coast’s clear.”

That smile. She liked that too- she hoped she’d see more of it. Her exhaustion hung on her shoulders, and before she realized it she was resting against him as they sat side by side. After a moment, she sat back up.

“Sorry,” she apologized, kicking off her boots and swinging her legs up onto the bed. Lying back, she reflected that she’d certainly slept on dirtier surfaces. This bed sagged under her, the boxspring miraculously in working order.

“Valentine, if you run off in the night, I swear I’ll track you down myself, understood?” She spoke forcefully out of habit, sincerely hoping he wouldn’t just cut and run on her.

“Don’t worry. You’re not getting rid of me that easily- not for a while yet, at least.” Nick dropped the jesting tone as she let herself down on the old mattress, responding to the anxiety he sensed behind her words. “All joking aside, we’re in this together. I won’t lie, when I found out about what happened to that poor girl I lit out of the city without stopping to consider, and it wasn’t what you’d call comforting to find myself all alone out here without a clue what to do next. It’s nice to have a plan… and someone watching my back.”

Riley was about to apologize for Penny, when her exhaustion caught up to her. She closed her eyes, falling asleep right then and there, hugging herself in the absence of a blanket.

Nick waited a little while, then stood, trying not to shift the bed more than he could help it. Not that it mattered- now that she was asleep he didn’t think anything would wake her until she was ready, be it a direct lightning strike or a twenty-piece brass band.

Shrugging off his coat, he drew it over her curled-up body. She was a strange mixture of tough and vulnerable and he wondered how long it had really been since she’d let her guard down enough to allow anyone else to reach her. Nick had always been adamant that a person’s mistakes didn’t have to shape who they were, and he was still trying to get the measure of his unlikely companion, the sum of her parts. Gang leader, sharpshooter, walking wounded. Anachronism, fury.

 

Lost soul.

 

All these things jostled with each other. It was a wonder she hadn’t torn herself to pieces long before now. Maybe, in a way, she had.

He settled himself in the musty armchair and lit a cigarette, rubbing the place on his arm where she’d rested absent-mindedly with the back of his thumb. Human touch was rare in his world. He was decades old, but the number of times another person had quietly leaned against him like that, he could have counted on the fingers of one hand.


	4. Cover the Bases

Riley dreamed. Of screams, of vault hallways, of cold. Cold that seeped into your bones, frost permeating every pore, cold so intense you could feel your heart slow and your thoughts stall until you could do nothing but sleep. Sometimes she felt like that cold was still somewhere in her core, the wasteland’s ruthlessness keeping it solid and glossy, despite the fire that had burned up the rest of her.

But Nick… Nick was warm. Not the intense warmth of a burst of flame, more like the warmth of… a blanket. A gradual warm, a gentle warm that let you adjust to it. She’d wanted to lean into the warmth of his body, humming with motors and servos, and the warmth of his words, yet to let her down since he’d promised to have her back.

Part of her called it stupid, to let her guard down against this synth she had barely known mere days ago. Her hands pulled his coat closer about her as her inner voice droned, her hardened sense of self preservation well-rehearsed. But another part of her, a growing part of her, was tired of being tough, tired of being defensive, and wanted once, just once… to let someone in.

It took most of the night for the storm to wear itself out. Towards dawn, Nick headed outside to take stock and was glad to see the smoggy greenish tinge to the sky giving way to a clearer hue. His rad counter was dropping, heading for safe levels.

He ducked back into the room, stubbing out his cigarette in the little pile of ash and spent butts he’d built up through the night.

When he returned to the room, Riley was on her feet, his coat draped over her arm. She was poised as ever, commanding, but something was different. Something about her seemed softer, just becoming pliable.

"You're still here," she observed, handing him his coat in passing as she went to her backpack, digging out a meagre breakfast of a single apple. "Anything go bump in the night?"

“Only the mole-rats,” said Nick, pulling his coat back on. He’d only owned it a day, but he was already thinking of it as _his._ He reached for his hat. “I can never get used to how unbothered those critters are by the rads. They’ve been having quite the pool party.”

"I sincerely hope that skeleton didn't get in there recently. Poor sod." She took a bite of the apple before flicking on her Pip-Boy. "Today's the thirteenth," she announced. "If we make good time today we should get to DC by nightfall, and then... then we fix this mess before it literally blows up in our faces."

“Sounds like a plan.” Nick shouldered his pack, tipping his hat down against the strengthening morning sun as he turned to the open door. “Ready to hit the road?”

"Ready as you are."

They started to head out together towards the turnpike. "I've been meaning to ask," Riley said, as they picked their way over the brush and rock. "What do you do over in DC? You a cop there too?"

Nick snorted. “Not hardly. Pre-war experience or not, I doubt Diamond City security would be too happy with an old synth like me calling himself the new sheriff in town. No, I’m what you could call a handyman... a jack-of-all-trades.”

He waved away a bewildered mosquito. “Hell, even that’s making it sound more glamorous than it really is. Usually, I just do the jobs nobody else wants.”

He heard a snort of laughter in her direction. "I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you," she explained hastily, waving a hand. "I just... you infiltrated a gun-running gang, heck, you found us in the first place, you've got all the skills of a sword of justice… and they use you as a _janitor?"_

“‘Sword of justice’ is a little strong,” said Nick. “Most of the time I feel like more of a, a pen-knife of not putting up with this crap while I can do something about it. And hell, if that’s how I can make myself useful, that’s fine by me. You know, it’s only by sheer luck I got a place in town at all.”

"Yeah? I suppose like anyone else, they probably just weren't automatically okay with a synth waltzing into town, what with the whole 'kidnapping and replacing people' shtick the Institute’s got going. So, what'd ya do?"

“Got myself roped into foiling a kidnapping, of all things.” Nick smiled. “The Mayor’s daughter. Girl of about fifteen, pride and joy of the Mayor back then, guy by the name of Henry Roberts. Of course, I had no idea who I was rescuing. I was out in the Wastes and I just stumbled on a crying girl and four toughs.”

He paused as they navigated up the side of a steep, rocky hill. The terrain was getting a little more built-up, the broken remains of pylons and smaller houses littering the line of the old road. “I took her home, and the Mayor dubbed me a hero, offered me a place in town. Lots of folks protested, said I was a spy, but he wouldn’t have it.”

"Wow. You know-" She paused as Nick gave her a hand to prevent from slipping down an incline. "First time I saw you, I had a feeling we were going to eventually chew you up." She dusted herself off as they continued. "I've come to realize you really could have done it. Turned us in, I mean."

“Well, first time I saw you, I thought I’d be lucky to get out of that bunker with my skull intact.” Nick grinned a wry grin. “So far, I’m glad to be wrong.”

"Oh man, the boys," she sighed, as they passed an old Red Rocket gas station. "Wonder what they thought when they found out I was gone. I'm sure when this is all over I can tell them I was off grabbing supplies or scavving or something. At least I know Angus will believe it. Then again, that guy believes anything."

Nick was quiet for a while after that. They skirted a few feral dogs that were snoozing in the sun out in the open, giving them a wide berth. In the middle distance, the rubble of outer Boston sprawled in a dusty haze.

"You know.... however this shakes out, you don't have to go back."

Riley was silent. She’d honestly never considered going anywhere else. “Where would I go? Everything I’ve done in the past year was to build everything I had there. I doubt that many places would want a former gun-runner."

“Hey, me and the new Mayor may not see eye to eye, but if McDonaugh started turning away anyone who’d ever done anything shady, the population of Diamond City would wind up amounting to him and his secretary. And I ain’t that sure about him,” Nick muttered.

He looked across at Riley. “But let’s not jump the gun here. If we want to help anyone at all we need to focus on getting there in one piece first."

“Right, we need to make sure Diamond City stays a city, and doesn’t turn into a smoldering crater," she nodded.

The day wore on, the junk and abandoned buildings getting denser as they travelled onwards. They'd occasionally hit a feral dog or a few stingwings, but between Nick's know-how and Riley’s deadly eye they were able to make short work of anything that stood in their way. They really did make an efficient team, and it didn't seem that long before they reached the outer limits of Boston.

"It's been a while," Riley sighed, as they walked down a battered sidewalk. The sun was just beginning to dip behind skeleton skyscrapers and ruined landmarks. "Place is still a dump."

“Sure is,” agreed Nick, taking a deep breath. They were descending into the litter of rubble now, the first-and-second-floor remains of houses, stores, smaller offices and apartments. Through the scarecrow trees and fences, Nick could still just about see the dusky blue-grey ribbon of the Charles, winding to the shore. “And yet, somehow, I’m always happy to see it again.”

They kept following the riverside east, towards the Fens, keeping inland of the mirelurk-haunted piers and wharfs. “You’ve been here before, you say?”

"Used to live here, back before the bombs fell. Grew up here actually. My dad was a cop with the Boston Police Department. I'd just bought a house north across the river, by Concord... s'where the Vault was too." She threw in the last part, like a detail she didn't feel was worthy of a thought. "Andy and I had so many plans, for us, We were thinking of starting a family... only for the plans to be snuffed out in an instant." Her backpack slipped and she readjusted it, trying not to think so hard about the opportunities she had to accept she'd never have again.

"Sorry, I'm getting sappy. Truth be told, I haven't talked about this in a long, long time."

“That’s just fine,” said Nick, quietly. Maybe more than she thought, he was garnering an idea of how much it took for her to give up anything much about herself, past the mask she wore It was just one of his hunches, but he’d learned to trust to those- sometimes even in the face of cold hard facts. “If it helps, just pretend I’m not here.”

"Kinda hard to, when you look like that," she said, the mask back on again. There was a bark in the distance, and when they looked towards it they both could make out a four legged form barrelling towards them. Riley reached for her Colt with caution, assuming danger. "Great, probably another feral dog-"

Nick’s metal hand moved quickly, stilling hers over her holster. He was smiling, a little mischievously now. “Hold it. I know that bark. This one’s a real terror, but I think I can handle him.”

He dropped to one knee in the dust, as the animal galloped into range. Riley had been right- it was a dog, a big, heavy-furred Alsatian with dark, lively eyes and a lolling tongue. It barked again, a glad, carrying sound, and ran a couple of dizzy circles around the two of them before shoving its eager nose right into Nick’s outstretched hand.

“Hey, Dogmeat. How’re you doing, boy?”

The dog barked in response, its tail waving madly about as it leaned into Nick’s scratches.

“Dogmeat?” Riley echoed, relaxing now that she knew there was no danger. It had been a long time since she’d seen a dog that didn’t immediately try to gnaw her arm off, or chase her away from premises she shouldn’t have been on. If Nick was so familiar with him, the dog must be a good dog- Nick was the biggest do-gooder she’d met in years. “Well, that’s an interesting name for a dog if I ever heard one.” She squatted, taking her hand off her gun and offering it for the dog to sniff.

Dogmeat snuffled at her fingers, then made an effort to lunge up onto her knees, licking at her face. Nick intervened, warding the dog away from her sore arm.

“Lay off, y’big goofball. Yeah... go figure. He doesn’t exactly have an owner, but that’s the only name he answers to. It’s good to see he’s still around. He sure is sweet-tempered for a Commonwealth mutt, but I guess he must have a pretty sharp sense of self-preservation, to keep knocking around out here on his own. Sorry, boy, I don’t have anything edible on me.”

The dog whined and cocked his head on one side, turning a pair of startlingly intelligent liquid-brown eyes on Riley. She laughed as he licked her cheek, his playful antics outweighing any discomfort in her arm. The moment he looked her in the eyes, she fell head over heels for the animal, as hard as the sound her bag made when it dropped to the dirt.

"I got something, boy." She dug about for a bit, pulling out a tin and opening it. She had to hold it away from Dogmeat's inquisitive nose. "Hold on there, bucko, just because I'm giving you some of my Brahmin jerky doesn't mean you can have all of it. " She stole a few pieces before resealing the tin, surprised when Dogmeat ate right from her hand.

Nick had to look away to hide his smile. While he hadn’t forgotten the urgency of their quest, the sight of the supposed cold-hearted mob-boss pulling gently at the dog’s big ears was a quite a picture, one he wouldn’t forget for a while. “Looks like you’ve made a new friend.”

Riley scratched behind his ears as she stood. “Good boy- now, we should probably keep moving-”

She picked up her backpack and started to walk, stopping when she realized Dogmeat had fallen into a gait next to her. “Dogmeat, no, we have important things to do-” She kept walking again, only to see the dog in line with her once more. She smiled a small smile and scratched behind his ears once more. “Well, guess I’m stuck with you now, eh, boy?”

Dogmeat barked in reply.

Nick chuckled, falling into step alongside her again. “Too bad. Now you’re stuck with both of us.”

“Great, two do-gooders instead of one.” She jokingly rolled her eyes. “Who knows, maybe he might have a nose that can help us. Speaking of which…”

The sun had set by now, and in the distance the glow of stadium lights reflected off the sparse clouds. “I think we’re almost there."

Nick stopped for a moment. His yellow eyes lifted to the distant glare.

“Diamond City,” he said. There were a lot of things mingled in his voice, relief, worry, care, even a little reverence. “Sure, it has its flaws, but it beats hell out of anywhere else in the Commonwealth. Let’s pick up the pace. We need to get inside before they shut the gates for the night.”

She had to admit, the sight was something to behold. She’d never seen Diamond City at night, or even from a distance. It was almost comforting; to see a light, a sign of civilization after spending so long in a dark, isolated bunker. Maybe she had forgotten what she was missing.

“You seemed to know of us when you came in,” Riley mentioned as they jogged, Dogmeat keeping up with them. “You don’t think I’ll be recognized, do you?” She was suddenly somewhat glad she had never accompanied Mack in the initial meetings.

“I’d heard of the Hayes Gang.” Glimpses of faded green between the buildings, the arc lights casting strange long shadows from the shattered wreckage they passed. The streets were clearer here. Security had always kept up a thorough job of breaking down and dragging away any obstructions, demolishing anything that an attacking force might be able to use as cover. “This city does a brisk trade in Commonwealth gossip. I’d heard a lot of rumours, and nothing too friendly at that. Might be a good idea to keep your surname to yourself for now. Let me do the talking, at least at first… like you say, they know me.”

Dogmeat let out a soft _wuff_ at his heel.

“And him.”

“Good thinking.” Riley tried not to look wary as they passed a security detail, her Colt suddenly feeling hot in its holster. “I suppose part of me is proud, that I’ve built up a reputation. Now I’m sorry it’s not a better one.”

They came to a pavilion of sorts, a statue of a man swinging a bat presiding over a cluster of turrets and a single lantern. Funny how imagery could stay the same, while time gave it different meanings as it pleased. What was once a monument to American sport now merely looked like a very under-equipped man defending himself. Riley cleared her throat, mentally preparing.

As they approached the entrance to the Great Green Jewel, they found that the gate had already been closed for the night. But it seemed like they weren’t the only ones who were locked out.

“Danny Sullivan, you’d better open this gate right now!” demanded the woman at the comm. She had her back to them, but Riley could see the bright reddish-pinkish tint of her coat even in the dim night light. The newsboy cap on her head gave way to rich brown wavy hair, and she looked young, but Riley could already tell she was a spitfire. Something about the scene gave her a sort of déjà vu, a feeling of familiarity for a situation she knew for sure she’d never been in.

 _“I’m sorry, Piper,”_ came an apologetic voice from the other end. _“You know McDonough’s rules, once the gate closes down for the night, you’ll have to wait until the morning.”_

 _“Ugh,_ first the Ghouls now this?” The woman, who Riley gathered must be Piper, waved her arms animatedly, accenting her words with a show the other half of the conversation probably couldn’t see. “I’m out here in the open, Danny! I can’t go out and pursue a story without being locked out of my own city?”

_“I’m just doin’ my job, Piper.”_

“Auugh!” Piper let out a grunt of frustration, hands bunching into fists. She kicked a pebble furiously out of the way, then stopped when she saw the two newcomers coming up behind her, measuring them up in an instant.

“Oh, hey! I’d know those glow-in-the-dark eyes anywhere-” Piper reached into her pockets, taking out and lighting a cigarette. “Nick Valentine, right? Haven’t seen you in a long time, where ya been?” She tipped her head in a little nod, looking over to Riley. “And who’s your new friend?”

“Can’t stop to chinwag just now, Piper,” said Nick, tipping his hat to her in a quaint, natural gesture that might have looked ridiculous on another man who didn’t look quite so much the part. “We’ve got urgent business with Security. You might want to tag along- this is shaping up to be one heck of a tale.”

He thumbed the comm, leaning in. “Danny, it’s Nick Valentine out here. You hafta let us in- this can’t wait till morning.”

“Urgent business, huh?” As Nick argued with Sullivan behind them, Piper ruffled Dogmeat's ears and looked Riley over from head to toe, then smiled. Tapping ash from her cigarette, she put it back in her mouth and flipped open a battered sternographer’s notebook, previously tucked into the band of her hat along with a short stub of grease pencil, now poised in her fingers. “C’mon, Blue Eyes, throw me a line here. What's the story?"

Riley looked her over as well, understanding Pipers occupation in just a moment. Her face hardened out of habit, and she suppressed the instinct to tell her to mind her own business. "We got a tip that someone might be planting explosives around DC."

"Believe it or not, wouldn't be the first I've ever heard of-"

"They planted mini-nukes."

Piper almost dropped her cigarette from her mouth, her eyes growing wide. "You're kiddin’."

"Do I look like I am?"

“You... really don't." Piper lowered her notebook. "So, how did you get tipped off about all this?"

"That's my business."

"Whoah, no need to get defensive, Blue."

 _"Valentine? You're out there too?"_ Sullivan replied over the comm, sounding much more awake now. _"Ms. Hoyt's been looking for ya. I hear another voice out there, who are you with?"_

“Her name’s Riley,” yelled Nick, who was running short on temper. Danny was never the sharpest tack in the toolbox, but right now his slow-and-steady pace was driving the synth right up the wall. “She’s got information about a serious threat to the city. We’re talking _nukes,_ Danny. Here. Tonight. Now, are you gonna let us in, or do you really want to end up explaining to McDonaugh how we coulda stopped some wackjob blowing a bunch of holes in his city, and you turned us away? Good luck sugarcoating _that_ pill.””

There was fumbling on the other side of the comm. _“All right, all right, I’m letting you in. You’d better inform Security, Valentine, I’ll be heading down to meet with you once I find someone to take the comm.”_ Rust groaned as the gate lurched, starting to open slowly. Piper and Riley turned at the noise.

“If you’re telling the truth, and I’m sure you are, we’d better move quick,” Piper said as they jogged to the door. Riley wasted no time in ducking under the slowly rising gate. “C’mon Nick!” Riley yelled, Dogmeat barking and running after her.

“H-hey! Wait!” Danny yelled after them, uselessly, as Piper ducked under too.

“Sorry, Danny,” yelled Nick, over his shoulder. “Needs must.”

Dogmeat bounded up the steps ahead of them as they surfaced from the gloomy underground walkway into a light-strung, bustling riot of noise and movement.

Although it was night-time, even though many of its citizens had already headed to bed, Diamond City after dark had a light and a rhythm of its own. There was a throng around Power Noodles, people coming off-shift or having dinner with their families, standing around the crowded stools, snacking on Takahashi’s hot specials. Percy, the battered Mister Handy over at Diamond City Surplus, was making a good job out of out-yelling Solomon the chem dealer for business, as the latter grew steadily more hoarse. A couple of kids, up past their bedtime, chased each other around under the tattered red canopy.

Nick touched Riley on her good shoulder as she took in the scene. “In case you needed a reminder,” he murmured, low enough so only she could hear. “This is what we’re doing this for, kid. Normalcy, safety, peace of mind- it doesn’t always seem so special, but it’s everything to these people. You’ve heard enough preaching out of me, now let’s get going and find those nukes.”

Riley paused. It had been so long since she’d been around people- people who weren’t willing to aim a gun at you for looking at them funny, at least. It was becoming more and more apparent exactly how much she’d locked herself away. These people looked… happy. Not perfectly content, but happy. She wondered if she could ever feel like that again.

But now wasn’t the time to feel sorry about herself. She- _they-_ had a job to do. “Right. Mack would always meet with Reed under the stands, that’s where we should start.”

“Reed?” Piper spoke up from just behind them. “As in Jason Reed? He’s the one behind this?”

Riley ignored the question, turning to her partner. “Nick, where was Penny’s body found?”

“North Stands,” said Nick, as they skirted the Market, diving into the maze of little streets that curved towards the north of the city. “A little way back from the platform McDonaugh and his cronies deliver their speeches from. You can get under around the back of the stage.”

He turned to Piper. “You know this guy? I have to admit, I’m having trouble putting a face to that name.”

“Reed? Yeah, he’s a bit of a weird duck,” Piper said, as she fell in step with them. “He’s never really caused a stir, but he’s not exactly a comfortable guy to converse with. I remember I tried to interview him about McDonaugh’s policies once, just a soundbite from your average citizen kinda thing, and he just gave me this creepy cryptic look.”

“Well, he’s managed to get his hands on a cache of mini-nukes- sorry-” Riley accidentally bumped into a bald security officer as they made their way, nearly knocking his sunglasses off. “We think he plans to detonate them and level the city.”

“Geez, and this has something to do with that Penny girl?”

“Not now, Piper,” Riley grumbled, as Nick pushed open the rusty door into the stands. The questions were starting to get on her nerves.

“As much as it pains me to talk this way, if we can’t find these things in good time we need to start thinking evacuation,” said Nick, grimly. The structure under the stands was cold and dark. The only light came from the illumination from Riley’s Pip-Boy and the glow of of Nick’s eyes. Beside him, Piper clicked her lighter, picking out dirty metal and ancient graffiti.

“You only have to look around the Wastes to see people don’t move too fast when they’re told to leave everything they own. And we can’t expect them to leave the Wall- they’d be sitting ducks for every Raider and supermutant in the Fens. The best we can do, if it comes to that, is move everyone to the shelters.” He looked away. “Talk about deja vu.”

Riley aimed her Pip-Boy, looking about. Her steps slowed at a red stain on the concrete, a mark that would probably never fully wash off. _Looks like Nick missed a spot,_ she thought, grimly, before a new idea struck her.

“Wait a second-” She turned, maneuvering her Pip-Boy until the light fell on her new canine friend. “Dogmeat, c’mere boy. I got something I need you to sniff for.”

Dogmeat padded forwards, his claws clicking on the hard floor, and nosed his big head into her hands.

“Huh, that mutt again?” said Piper, looking up from her examination of the rusty stain. “I haven’t seen him around the city for a while.”

“Good boy.” Riley reached into her pack, taking out a spare shirt she had taken from Mack’s stash. “Here boy, can you find any traces of this?”

Even without Dogmeat’s senses, the smell of grease and gunpowder from the bunker was distinct. Dogmeat buried his nose in the garment, sniffing eagerly before barking. His nose sniffled as he then inspected the concrete. After a moment the dog looked up, barked again, then galloped off into the darkness.

“C’mon!” Riley stood, the green glow of her Pip-Boy following the mutt into the dark.

It was a helter-skelter dash, with the clatter of Dogmeat’s paws ahead of them, over boards and corrugated tin and the soft earth between. Nick and Piper were almost shoulder-to-shoulder as they rounded the ramshackle signpost by Publick Occurrences and plunged into the smaller alleys on the other side. Somewhere along the way Danny Sullivan and a couple of his men joined in the chase, but either the two grunts had spent a little too long strolling easily around the city or they weren’t too eager to be the first to run into a nest of mini-nukes, because they fell behind pretty fast.

Danny kept up, just. Nick could hear him breathing hard on his coat-tails as they ran.

Dogmeat barked as they arrived at a door sandwiched between two other abodes. “Attaboy!” Riley scratched his head in approval. “When this is over, I’ll get you more jerky.” She knelt, taking another bobby pin from her hair and working the lock.

“Hey! You can’t just-”

“Danny, I don’t think now is the time to be discussing whether it’s ethical to be breaking into the house of someone who wants to blow us sky-high,” Piper reminded him, just as Riley opened the door.

Dogmeat barrelled in past her. The room was dark- Riley nearly hit her shin on a table as she fumbled around. “Reed? You in here? Nick, can you find a light-switch anywhere?”

“I’m on it,” said Nick, from somewhere near the door. A pause, and then a bloom of crazy-swinging light as the one lightbulb in the place sputtered on, throwing seasick shadows across the walls. Nick reached up to still it with his metal hand, looking around the cramped tin shack.

Jason Reed hadn’t been much of an interior decorator. As far as aesthetic went, the place did a pretty hard line in ‘compulsive hoarder’ with a side of ‘conspiracy theorist’ thrown in. On nearly every surface, wedged into gaps in the piled-up junk, stacked in bundles on the shelves, notebooks worn with age and use. That wasn’t where it ended, either. At some point, it looked like Reed had given up on using notebooks and just started writing on the walls instead.

“Looks like we found that serial wall-paint-stealer,” Piper observed, eyeing a green-tinged rambling about the Institute scrawled on the wall over a desk piled with notebooks and trash. _“They came for the city, they’re coming for me,”_ Riley read aloud.

 _“Valentine, Valentine, it started with Valentine, I’ll end it with Valentine._ Gee, Nick, I knew some people were iffy about you, but this is a bit of overkill,” Piper said, joining her in the reading.

“He’s nuts,” Riley said, quickly, looking to Nick. “Thinking he can pin his delusions on one person.”

“Yeah, well, nuts with a pot of Monster Green is just aggravating,” said Nick. He was shaken to the core, to stumble across his own name at the heart of this deadly mystery but he had his game-face on now, the one that could take any amount of punches straight to the jaw- to his right to exist as a person, even _be_ a person- and keep right on ticking. He cast a tired eye over a heap of the notebooks, turning them over. “Nuts with a batch of mini-nukes is in another league altogether. What’s this, here?”

In the corner, on the far wall above a litter of food trays and spent stubs of charcoal, the repetition of Nick’s name gave way to a single phrase, over and over.

 

_Cover all the bases cover all the bases cover all the BASES ALL the BASES COVER ALL THE BASES COVER ALL THE BASES COVER ALL THE_

 

Nick looked up. “My God...”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Piper said.

“I think I might be,” Riley replied. She didn’t waste any time, turning to the group. “Nick, you check first, Piper; second, Danny; third. Dig if you have to. You find anything, meet me back at the home plate. It’s okay- I remember where that is.”

 She ran off, her Pip-Boy ticking off three minutes to midnight as she did. Dogmeat barked, running ahead to the home plate.


	5. Home Run

Riley skidded to a stop, going to her knees. Her fingers clasped around the base, and she ignored the dirt that scraped her knuckles as she wrenched off the metal clasps securing it to the ground. There in the sand was a hole deep enough to give way to the dirt, and at the bottom sat the red cap of a mini-nuke.

“There you are.” Riley uprooted it carefully, turning it over to find a timer, set for two minutes and fourteen seconds. Thankfully, the timer didn’t seem to be moving at all.

At the very same time, lost to Riley’s line of sight around the long twist of Diamond City’s central alleyway, Nick was kneeling in the dirt, lifting his own deadly burden. The nuke felt cold in his arms, the heavy chill biting through his coatsleeves as he stood, thankful that nobody was out here to see him walking fast back towards the city’s home plate with one of the most dangerous relics of the Commonwealth’s past cradled in his arms. With such a fragile cargo, he didn’t have the nerve to run.

Soon all four of them were together, gathered at the home plate, each with a deadly payload in their arms.

“Now what?” Piper asked. She was as on edge as the rest of them, to be holding such firepower in her hands.

“We defuse them.” Riley gently put hers down, reaching into her bag. “Before I left the bunker I grabbed-”

She froze at the sound of a gun cocking.

“Stop _right_ there!”

Jason Reed was a dirty man, his newsboy cap crooked on his head, his eyes wide and wild behind the Gauss rifle he had aimed at Riley.

“The Institute sent you, didn’t they? Put those down, and just walk away!"

“That’s not gonna happen, Jason,” said Nick, getting carefully to his feet. He kept his empty hands out in front of him, palms open in a gesture of harmlessness. As if Reed was going to believe that at this stage. “This whole mess can still end quietly. Just lower the gun, and we can talk.”

“This is all because of you!” Reed babbled furiously, jabbing the gun towards Nick. “You gave the Institute an in, and now the Mayor’s actin’ funny, kicking out all the ghouls. They’re tryin’ to get to me, they’re all trying to get to me! And I gotta stop ‘em before they do!”

His voice was shaky, manic, the gun itself starting to tremor. Riley wondered how Mack had ever figured this guy was a solid trading connection. He certainly didn’t look like one now. She looked him over, saw what looked like a modified remote camera shutter hanging from his belt. That must be the detonator. If she could just get her hands on it…

“Jason, I- I tried to help those people. You can ask-” Reed jerked the rifle at him, and Nick backed off a step. “Now, now, take it easy. You don’t have to believe me, but do you really think hurting more innocent people is going to help anything? Why don’t we-”

Whatever he was going to suggest, he never got the chance. Danny Sullivan, who had a limited attention span when it came to lengthy negotiations, decided he saw an opening in Reed’s attention focusing on Nick, and leapt forwards. Startled, Reed swung the Gauss at him, too jumpy to even go for the trigger, and slammed the heavy barrel right into Danny’s jaw. Diamond City’s finest went out like a light, crumpling to the dirt.

"Ah shit!" Piper swore harshly under her breath as Danny hit the floor.

"Whoah there, Reed!" Riley had her hands up as well. "Before you go off, you might as well know who else you're talking to-”

“I don't want to hear anything you have to say!" Reed snapped, aiming for her again.

"Now Reed, it won't look good for you if you kill your benefactor."

"Benefactor?" Piper leaned closer to Nick. "The hell is she talking about?"

"You know me, Reed." Riley took a daring step closer, a familiar ice creeping into her breath as she lowered her arms. Her face hardened, serious with a dangerous edge of cockiness. "And I have to say it would be a shame for my boys to come after you when Mack finds out you blew up his boss."  
  
"Hayes? But..." Reed lowered the gun a hair. "But- why are you with _them?_ They're trying to foil my cleansing!"

"Key word being _tried."_ Riley stepped closer, her hands completely down. "The Hayes Gang takes their clients seriously. I knew that girl my associate bumped off would bring the heat, so I tricked ‘em into thinking I was on their side, so I could stop them."

It was a convincing bluff, to say the least. The rifle twitched. Reed’s reddened eyes flicked between Riley’s face and her hands, and then finally, he blinked. Shrinking under her chilling stare, he chewed on his frayed lip and lowered the rifle another uncertain inch, his finger falling away from the trigger.

“Hayes...”

“There we go.” She moved to his side, turning to face her partner. “Sorry, Nicky-boy,” she sighed with a smile, a razor grin that was highlighted by her lipstick. A smile like the one she had given Nick when she first laid eyes on him. “Gotta save my hide when I can.”

“Why, you little-” Piper sneered, but she never got a chance to finish.

Riley moved quickly, her hand balling into a fist as she swung, turning so that her fist connected with Reed’s cheek. He stumbled, but her other hand was already on the move and she snatched the detonator off his belt, careful to close her fingers around the safe end of the device. The string securing it snapped, and Reed joined Danny in the dirt.

Danny’s two compatriots made up for lost time, piling forwards and body-checking the man as he made a dazed attempt to sit up. Between them, they had him up and cuffed in no time flat, his feet practically leaving the ground.

Nick realised his hands were curled into tight fists, so much painful tension that he had to uncurl them slowly. He felt his coolant start to flow again, and breathed.

She was good. Nearly too good. Her front was almost too convincing, and although he’d hoped with all his heart he had her pegged right, he’d had the scare of his life, scared for her and _of_ her because for a second he’d believed her act. He’d seen the whole thing flash forwards in cold detail, another tragedy, another who-knew-how-many dead because one dumb synth thought he had _instincts._

Somehow, yet again, the worst hadn’t happened. Nick tore his eyes away from the nukes sitting harmlessly in the dirt and looked across at her, standing there with the detonator in her hand.

He wasn’t scared any more.

Riley moved aside as they took Reed away, The Gauss rifle her boys had made lay abandoned in the dirt. “Sorry,” she said, shortly, reaching out her hand and offering Nick the detonator. “You should hold this.”

On her wrist, her Pip-Boy ticked silently, the fuzzy green digits of the clock rolling over to midnight. It was Valentine’s day.

 

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

 

“Nick,” Piper said, sounding like she was about to be sick, as all eyes turned to the firepower gathered around the home plate. “Please tell me that’s you.” It was obvious who- or what- it was, as the red timers began to count down from their set times.

“Ah, shit,” Riley swore, dropping down as she pulled out a tattered paper. Nick could tell from the yellowing color that it was prewar. Riley desperately tugged off one of the timers, revealing a tangle of wires. “Nick, I need something to cut with!” She scanned the paper. “Blue wires! Cut the blue wires!"

“I got it-” His left pinky, the damaged one, was sharp as a letterknife if you angled it the right way. Nick was suddenly fervently glad he’d never got round to getting it fixed and sanded down, all the times he’d used it on envelopes and tricky knots and spare threads all-at-once feeling like a lot more than just plain laziness on his part. He touched the metal of the shack wall alongside them for grounding, got the sharp joint under the loop of blue wire out of the first timer, cradled the rest of the circuitry carefully in his other hand, said a silent prayer and drew it through in one sharp movement. The timer cut out, blinking to black, and the beeping stopped.

By the time he’d done with the first nuke, Piper already had the casing open on the second, ready for him to operate.

They worked quickly and efficiently, Piper and Riley cracking the timers open and Nick shutting them down, each _schick_ of a wire being cut making their hearts beat slower, their nerves less on edge.

With the last one, everyone drew out a sigh of relief, four dormant mini-nukes sitting before them.

“We did it.” Riley heaved, gasping for air as she realized she’d been holding her breath. She leaned against him, her face in his shoulder. “Nick, we did it-”

“I’m proud of you, kid,” said Nick, quietly. He could feel that she was shivering. He was worried for her- she’d been through hell- but he had an inkling that maybe this was the most natural reaction she’d had to shock and stress for a while. All things considered, he was a lot happier to see that she was letting herself feel it, at least.

Her hand gripped at his coat sleeve, the fabric bunching in her fingers. She’d blamed herself for so much; for Penny, for Reed, for the danger every soul in Diamond City had been placed in, for everything that had led up to this mess. But that weight had lightened. It could have been so much worse, she had been prepared for it to end so much worse, but it hadn’t.

Piper, as always, had billions of questions floating around in her head. Nick had been right, there was a story here, and a hell of one at that. But for now, she just reached into her pocket, letting out a shaky sigh as her lighter trembled at the end of the cigarette to light it aflame.

Nick liked Piper, and right about now he was wishing he’d made that clearer now on the few occasions they’d run up against each other in the past. He smiled at her over Riley’s bent head, and nodded, once, appreciating the tact she was showing right now, having the decency not to bombard the two of them with questions.

Danny was starting to come round. He sat up, groaning, rubbing his jaw. “Wh- what happened? Where’s Reed?”

“Taken care of,” Piper explained. “Blue here knocked him out, and we deactivated the nukes. Thanks for your assistance, Danny.” The statement was a mix of sarcasm and actual gratitude.

“How did those nukes even get here in the first place?” Danny got up, painfully, looking across at Riley. “She seems to know a lot about this. Miss…Riley, was it? You should come down to security with me, we have some questions for you.”

Riley paused, her hands bunching tight in Nick’s coat before slowly, hesitantly, she pried her fingers away. She’d known this was coming, and she knew what came next.

"And I'm sure they can wait till tomorrow," said Nick. He was at his most disarming, slipping in between Riley and Sullivan. "Come on, Danny, have a little heart. The girl’s dead beat and you and your boys have enough on your hands with Reed for one night... that and the mess he's left in that shack uptown. Turns out our boy was quite the diarist."

He spread his hands. “Besides, Mayor McDonaugh’s gonna want to hear all about how you saved the city from certain nuclear devastation tonight. You don’t want to keep him waiting, do you?”

Danny opened his mouth, then closed it again, dithering in the presence of Nicks intense eyes.

“And I need to get writing tomorrows scoop, about how Diamond City’s finest saved us all,” Piper offered. “You give Reed an extra punch for me. Lord knows your boys always play a little too rough.”

Danny’s eyes moved from Piper to Nick, then Riley. “Right… right, I’m getting ahead of myself,” he said. “I’ll get everything I can from Reed, but then I’ll need to get your side of the story. Goodnight.” He nodded before turning to go, his men dragging Reed away after him.

Once he was gone, the relative quiet of Diamond City’s night settled over the street once more. Riley took Piper’s hand when she offered it, getting shakily to her feet.

“So. The infamous Riley Hayes.” Piper’s eyes drilled into her, before her face softened and she smiled. “Heard a lot about you. Tell you what- I promise not to to say a word, but you two come by later and tell me the whole story. I’m sure Miranda Hoyt would appreciate some anonymous closure.”

She gestured to Nick next, the smoke from her cigarette snaking in the air. “You did good, Valentine. You too, Hayes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As Piper headed back towards Publick Occurrences, Nick put a guiding hand on Riley’s arm, steering her away from the scene as another parcel of Security arrived to take the dismantled nukes into custody. Dogmeat padded along on the other side of her, keeping close.

“I’m still counting my lucky stars that line I spun Danny worked at all,” Nick said, half-joking. “He’s a good kid, but sometimes he remembers he’s meant to be in charge, and I think the shock scares him half silly. And I don’t think playing second banana to a chump like McDonaugh helps him any in the ‘rational thought’ department.”

By themselves, his feet started to tend homeward. It felt good to be walking the alleys they’d sprinted up in a panic just minutes earlier, taking their sweet time. Nick dropped his voice, sobering up. “How’re you holding up? I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time to call it a night.”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” admitted Riley, trying to regain her independence, but her body didn’t listen, seeming content to let Nick’s hand guide her. “But I just… God, that was close, and I almost just… let it happen.” She trailed off, her thoughts going a mile a minute as they turned to what would happen next. She had so many questions, but her experience gave no answers as to how tomorrow would pan out. “What do you think they’re gonna do to me?”

“Not a damn thing, if I can help it,” said Nick, firmly. He sounded more as if he was speaking his own mind than anything else. “I haven’t stuck around this burg this long, seen the things I’ve seen, without it bein' good for _something._ We’ll see just how much I can make it count.”

Falling silent, he led her down another alley to a dim-lit opening, barely a narrow hallway between one building and the next. The concrete walls dead-ended in a battered steel door, and Nick put his hand up with a gentle _clink_ of metal on metal, then hesitated.

“You okay sleeping here tonight? It ain’t exactly the Ritz, but it’s home.”

“There’s no way I’m making it back to the bunker tonight, that’s for sure.” She straightened herself, standing away from him. Her emotions were reaching critical, crowding her head, and she searched for a distraction. “This is where you live?” She looked at the metal door. “Seems like a cozy little hideaway.”

She hardly looked around when Nick opened the door, barely heard him as he asked her to excuse the sparse nature of the abode. Her boots made soft footfalls as she moved to the closest chair, dropping into it. She realized Nick was giving her space, and the kindness of the gesture was not lost on her. Normally, she wouldn't have said a thing. Riley had learned emotional talk led to vulnerability, vulnerability led to a loss of credibility, which then meant losing control. _Control._ She was beginning to realize how sick she was of clinging to this persona, her mask of toughness. But now, again, it was just her and Nick, and her desire for control was gone. She watched, wearily, as he readied the underused bed for her.

"When I left the vault, and I found everything I knew gone," she started, "I just felt... lost. That kind of lost where... you have these pieces, all these choices where to go. But everything seems so big, so deep to fathom... you feel trapped standing still."

Nick heard her stand and come up behind him. She moved around to help him tuck in a sheet. "Needless to say, I'm having a bit of deja vu right now."

Judging that the bed was about as guestworthy as it was ever going to be, Nick stood back and tousled Dogmeat’s fur. The big dog settled on the floor by the bed, looking between the two of them with his ears perked.

“I understand,” he said, “and as corny as that probably sounds to you right now, I’m not just saying that. It took me a long damn time to adjust to this world, and even longer to make a home in it. But I want you to know, you’re not lost. And you’re not alone, either. A lot of people owe their lives to the choices you made today. I’d try to hold on to that, if I were you. It could help you keep perspective.”

He looked up. “You... really still thinking about going back to that bunker?”

Riley remembered her promise and knelt down, rummaging through her bag. "Where else would I go? For the last few years I've killed and cheated and stolen to build that place… I suppose in the end I only built it to preserve myself, a way of playing by the wasteland’s rules so it didn’t get to me." Her fingers closed around the battered tin, keeping it within her bag as she pulled out a few pieces of jerky. "I've been in the dark too long. Maybe it's where I belong."

Dogmeat perked up as he smelled the treat, and Riley offered his reward to him. "God, I must sound like a damn pity party here."

Nick shook his head, then gave her one of his wry, warm half-smiles. “Well, I don’t know about that, but if you don’t trust my judgement, just look at Dogmeat. You may not believe it, but this mutt’s a pretty particular judge of character. You wouldn’t catch him goin’ soft for just anyone he happened across, but take a look at him now.” He scratched behind Dogmeat’s ear as the big Alsatian scrunched on the jerky and looked adoringly up at Riley. “That’s a regular case if I ever saw one.”

That smile. Something about it dazzled her. Again, she found herself wanting to see more of it. Dogmeat whined softly as he happily took the treat, and Riley scratched behind his ears with a smile of her own. “Well, I guess as long as I have you two in my corner, I’ll end up all right. Thanks, Nick. It’ll be hard to start anew, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find some place-”

There was a soft _fwump_ as the dog propped his head in Riley’s lap, keeping her still. “Aw, Dogmeat, I can’t stay here,” she interpreted, continuing to scratch his ears.

“Well, why not?” Nick spread his hands. He sounded a little awkward- a practical man uncertain if he was offering anything worth accepting- but heartfelt, in earnest. “Once we square things with Danny’s boys, it won’t hurt you to keep your head down awhile, get a feel for the city. You see what I have... and I’ll grant it ain’t much, but it’s a roof over your head and it’s yours as long as you need it. Tell you the truth, I’d appreciate the company.”

She was still for a moment before she looked to him, getting to her feet. Dogmeat stood as well, wondering what was going on.

“You… are you offering for me to stay with you?” Her face buckled a moment, another crack forming in her tough façade as a definite path cleared before her eyes, leading straight to this battered synth. This man. She smiled softly, then offered a hand.

“You got a deal, Valentine.”

When Nick took her hand, she pulled him in, embracing him and not letting go for a long while. _Maybe things will work out after all._

To say Nick was startled was an understatement.  
  
Three times. In just under a century, he’d been hugged three times. The kid in Dulvey when he’d left, a crushing and more-than-slightly-inebriated bearhug from Vadim when he’d run across him one New Years’, and a young girl from Goodneighbor when he’d tracked down her drunken reprobate of a father and brought him home. Nick remembered each occasion very clearly. Before, his only memories of close contact were of his family, of Jenny.

Riley was quiet in his arms, warm, alive. Nick held her gently, closing his eyes.

* * *

  To Be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! We hope you loved the story as much as we enjoyed writing it!   
> -Andersam and Waffles


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